


When Lightning Strikes, Waves Will Electrify

by RainySteve



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Book 5: The Blood of Olympus (Heroes of Olympus), F/M, Other, the seven plus nico and reyna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 11:15:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16680562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainySteve/pseuds/RainySteve
Summary: This is my version of the ending for Blood of Olympus.





	When Lightning Strikes, Waves Will Electrify

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this BEFORE BoO came out if you can believe it. I had high hopes

“Moon lace?” 

  
Gaea didn’t bother looking back at her visitor. Instead, she took the delicate night flower in her hand and crushed it.

  
She’d been having short bursts of consciousness since her sons had escaped Tartarus triumphantly, she wasn’t going to waste them on prideful heroes.   
“You know what your job is,” she told him, her voice resonating through the ground. “Succeed and you shall have your revenge.”

  
“And if I fail?”

  
A dreamy smile passes along her face. “If you fail, you shall face The Seven.”   
“I’m not afraid of a few silly mortals!”

  
“Don’t forget you were once like them, and it’s pride and your hunger for power that got you killed.”

  
The god balled his fists. “It was Hera who got me killed!” He walked closer to the goddess, an instinctive attempt at intimidating. “It was all the Olympians”

  
“Don’t forget that said Olympians give the responsibility of fighting their wars to their mortal sons and daughters for a reason,” Gaea wavered as exhaustion once again washed over her. “Don’t underestimate The Seven”

  
“Why do you insist on keeping them alive?” His tone was as low as hers now. “Why didn’t you killed them when you had the chance?”

  
“There’s rules that even I have to abide to, but you should not underestimate me either, young one.” She smiled again, as if thinking of something pleasant. “I am everywhere and everything that you walk upon on is me.”

  
“Do you actually believe this is all I have to offer? Even as I speak to you, I’m ordering another army to attack, whispering into someone else’s ear.”

  
The god pouted like a small child. “Then why put me -one of your greatest soldiers- to such a simple task?”

  
“Don’t questions me Hercules,” her time was almost over, “do as I say, kill their loved ones, and retrieve your vengeance.”

********

* * *

 

 

Sally Jackson dryly hummed to herself and she watered her small garden. Her eyes stung when it was time to spray the delicate moon lace that her son had brought almost two years ago. 

  
“Percy,” she whispered, “where are you?”

  
The blossom had started to lose it’s beauty since he’d gone missing. Now, it was almost dead. Sally felt that if she let it die, he’d never come back. She believed in bad omens, and this one bothered her the most. 

  
She abruptly stopped when she heard the door to her apartment open. Paul isn’t suppose to come back so soon. “Paul is that you?”

  
She walked through Percy’s room to the kitchen and found no one. “Honey?”

  
“Sorry,” spoke a voice behind her. He didn’t sound too sorry. “But maybe you’ll find that I’m much better looking than this Paul”

  
Outside, the first petal of the moon lace fell off and drifted away towards the busy New York streets.

**********

  
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. 

  
“He’s sorry!”

  
Percy flinches when he hears their cackles. The wound piercing his chest makes it hard to breathe so all he can taste is blood. He’s dying. He didn’t know what he was doing. He’s dying.

  
“Feel the pain of all the ones you have brought suffering upon, Perseus Jackson,” they order. They’re horrible, gruesome hags and for a second he mistakes them for The Fates but there’s too many. “Did you actually think you could kill as you pleased with no consequences?”

  
He didn’t even stop to wonder. He never looked back.

  
“You’re as bad as all of them,” he feels one’s lips on his ear but hears the echoing voice all around. “You’re the worst of the lot.”

“No.”

  
Suddenly he’s in his cabin. He’s not in Tartarus; he’s flying in the Argo II. He’s not dying.

  
He presses his head against his pillow, clammy with cold sweat. It’s been thirteen days since his friends rescued Annabeth and him from that hell hole, but he’s dreamt of it every single one of them. Most of the time he can’t breathe, he can still feel gorgon’s blood coursing through his veins. But it’s not the poison that kills him. It’s the lie.

  
Percy Jackson, savior of Olympus. Percy Jackson, selfless hero. 

  
It’s all a lie. How had he been vane enough to believe it? It wasn’t his bravery that got him out of there; it was Bob’s and Damasen’s. It was Annabeth’s brains, it was Nico’s kindness. 

  
He was neither brave nor kind nor smart. He never was. As much as he hated what Tartarus and Gaea had done to him, he hated how scared he was. He could still hear his sword clatter to the ground at the sight of the big black pit himself. That painful knot of fear never left him. It was with him now, always.  
But the crew all looked up to him. They could’ve been ten times the leader Percy had ever been thought to be. Jason had been praetor far longer than Percy and even with his sudden Greek flare, leadership came easily to him. Frank was already doing a spectacular job. Still, he seemed to be looked up as the leader.  
Every single member of the crew seemed so incredibly powerful to Percy, more deserving of the respect he was given. 

  
They didn’t need him. So why was he still alive?

  
Annabeth?

  
He sighed and sat up. As he shuffled into some sneakers –he always slept clothed nowadays in case any monsters attacked while he slept- he decided to wake up Annabeth. It’s not like she’d been getting a lot of sleep either. She was probably up planning a plan for the plan she’d already planned. Counting sheep didn’t really help his girlfriend.

  
“Is that you Seaweed Brain?” He didn’t even have to knock before she called out.

  
“Yeah”

  
“It’s opened”

  
As predicted, she was laying on her back staring at the ceiling. Her eyebrows furrowed letting him know she was in fact coming up with a plan. With and impending war, those were never enough.  
He slumped beside her and immediately reached for her hand. “Can’t sleep either, huh?”

  
“Nope”

  
“We should really figure this out,” he mumbled. “We’re not at our best when we’re sleep deprived.”

  
Annabeth turned her head to stare at her boyfriend. “What?” She shook her head.

  
“What?”

  
“You sounded just like Jason, that’s all”

  
It was Percy’s turn to stare at her. “How exactly did I sound like him?”

  
“You were all like we must think of the others, we cannot be anything less than fully functional.”

  
“You’re definitely sleep-deprived”

  
She laughed. Hearing that made Percy’s neck a little less stiff. 

  
“You two are a lot more alike than you think you are.”

  
“I don’t know,” admitted Percy. He’d never really thought about it. “Are you saying that because he’s been acting weird lately?”

  
“Partially”

  
“He seems less…wound tightly”

  
“Exactly”

  
“He seems less-”

  
“Roman”

  
Maybe Percy wasn’t the only one considering a different camp. Maybe he was a bit like Jason. “Yeah”

  
“Well, Roman or Greek, Jason’s a good guy,” Annabeth said.

  
“Since when are you best buddies with Jason? Last time I checked, he made you kind of nervous.”

  
“That’s because Hera swapped him with my boyfriend,” she explained, “I’ve gotten to know him better and -if Piper trusts him- I should too.”

  
“I trust them”

  
“You’ll trust anyone that’ll shake your hand, Percy”

  
“They’ve both saved my life plenty of times.” Why did Annabeth think he was so naive? “It’d be selfish of me not to trust them”

  
“That’s not what I meant”

  
Percy sat up. “Then what did you mean?”

  
“I-” 

  
It was hard to talk with those intense green eyes looking at her. She’d seen Percy angry plenty of times, but now she couldn’t help but remember how he controlled the poison, how he almost didn’t stop.

  
He scoffed and got up. “I’m going to get some practice. Try to rest”

 

 

Fifteen minutes later, Percy was at the stables. Riptide drawn at his side. As he leveled his sword with the horribly battered dummy he’d built the day before, he pictured the cursed arai. This time your blows won’t hurt me, he told himself.   
For some reason, Percy always found himself thinking of Clarisse La Rue back at Camp when he fought. He remembered how she tore her own dummy down to pieces the summer of The Battle of the Labyrinth, her anger. Never had he imagined he would sympathize with Clarisse, but he understood now. He understood anger and the realization scared him. 

  
Gaea had called him a pawn and that’s exactly what he felt like. That’s exactly what he was. Now, Annabeth was calling him naive. He’d always had a problem with trusting. He did it too fast, he cared too quickly. But for Annabeth to just point it out like that made him mentally flinch. He wasn’t twelve anymore. Those type of mistakes weren’t allowed anymore.

  
He moved past the ruined piece of hay beneath him and continued to attack and jive until his mind was simply thinking of slicing. Training had always cleared his head, it was also one of the first things he found was good at. Percy was a good killer. 

  
There was a small prickle at the back of his neck, he tensed. 

  
“Hey Perc-“

  
“WHOA!”

  
Percy’s fingers where around Jason’s throat, blade leveled with his nose. Immediately, he retreated. “Sorry.” He didn’t realize he had been breathing so hard. 

  
Jason looked at him, eyes surprisingly full of concern. “I should’ve knocked or cleared my throat or something. My bad.”

  
Both boys stood in a silence too awkward to break for what seemed like an eternity. Jason was the last person he wanted to see.

  
Finally, Percy’s ADHD got the best of him. “Did you need something? Or-“

  
“No, I was just-,” he cleared his throat, “walking around.”

  
“Oh.”

  
It suddenly struck Percy that he’d never actually had a proper conversation with Jason. Not alone at least. Jason’s a good guy, he heard Annabeth telling him.

  
“So, you’re practicing?” 

  
“Yeah”

  
“Want some company?” Jason took out his own sword. “I haven’t practiced in a while myself.”

  
Percy chewed his lip, hesitant. “You should probably take advantage of the few hours you have to sleep.”

  
“Fine, then we should both crash.”

  
They both knew what Jason was doing. Percy was slightly annoyed by it. He didn’t want to be taken care of, especially not by Jason. He didn’t have anything against him, but the way he could just selflessly offer help to others made him cringe. Maybe he was jealous, or maybe he was just on edge these days. Either way, the pity wasn’t appreciated. 

    
“I always wanted to be taught by a roman.”

  
The blonde smirked. “I’ve heard nothing but praise about your teaching skills.”  
In an instant their swords had connected. Jason looked like he wanted time to analyze him for a bit longer, but that’s how romans fought and Percy couldn’t help but dive in. He had him cornered five minutes later, but Jason spun out of the way and almost got him just as quick. They continued like that, each swerve made Percy feel lighter. 

  
This was a simple problem with a simple solution; fighting just for the purpose of getting better. It’d been a while since he’d done that. Actually, he probably hadn’t done it since he was twelve, with Luke. Two friends practicing. 

  
Last time he was at camp, he was the one teaching. Even then the campers looked at him the way the crew did. It didn’t really bother him if the admirers where thirteen-year-olds that had a hard time wrapping their heads around the fact that the gods existed. When the ones giving him admiration were not only experienced fighters but his friends; He didn’t know how to react. He’d hoped that maybe since Jason knew what it was like having the weigh of responsibility on his shoulders, he could relate. 

  
Could Jason be his friend? “Nice one,” he prompted as Percy jived and forced him to retreat. They finally caught their breaths. 

  
“Use the hilt,” Percy offered. 

  
“Huh?”

  
“Your hilt, use the whole sword not just the blade.”

  
Jason furrowed his brows as he considered his advice. “No roman would do that.”

  
“I think we both know you’re more than just roman, Jason.”

  
Blue eyes stared back at him, they held a playful glint. “You’re smarter than you look, Jackson.”

  
“Why do people always tell me that?”

********

The next day, Jason showed up to sword practice again. Then the next day.  
Annabeth was right, Jason was a good guy. He still couldn’t get their conversation out of his head though. Maybe he was reacting too dramatically. One way or another, they always ended up fighting and one way or another they always figured it out. But that hit too close to home.

It was like she picked out the thing that bothered him the most and just tossed it around as if it were nothing. As if he was still that same old kid that trusted Aunty Em or that couldn’t finish off the Cyclops. 

  
Still, he couldn’t stay mad at her. She was Annabeth.

  
Today’s night shift had fallen upon them both, and Frank. Poor guy always ended up getting caught in their drama. 

  
“Hey Frank,” he called.

  
“What’s up?”

  
“Can you give us,” he nodded towards his girlfriend, “a moment?”

  
He went pink, which was quite a sight with his new growth spurt. “Uh, sure sure”

  
“It’s not like that-”

  
“No need to explain Percy-”

  
“Frank-” he wanted to explain that it wasn’t what he thought it was but he’d already left.

  
He sighed and walked towards where Annabeth was, at the mast. She didn’t look back at him even thought she probably heard his whole conservation and his clumsy steps. What had she and Silena described them as? A love-sick Minotaur?

  
“What was that about?”

  
“Frank being Frank, y'know.”

  
She nodded but stayed where she was. If one of them was going to apologize, it was going to be Percy. “Look,” he tried,“I might have overreacted the other day-”

  
“Might?”

  
Percy pressed down on his teeth. “Okay, I overreacted the other day.”

  
“You did.” She huffed. “But I shouldn’t have said that”

  
This was new. He started to say something but she beat him to it. 

  
“You’re not a little kid anymore, Percy. And you’re not naive.” Annabeth turned around, she looked wistful. “Sometimes I forget that, sometimes I just want it to be like before. Even us”

  
“We’re so paranoid and grown-up now-”

  
“Please don’t say mature because I’ll be forced to attack you and verify you’re still my girlfriend.”

  
She chuckled. “Maybe not that. But..older”

  
“I know,” he massaged the back of his neck, glad Annabeth wasn’t mad at him, “I can’t believe it half of the time either”

  
“You just seem to take everything as it goes. Whatever challenge presents itself, you just don’t question it anymore.”

  
“Well, after five years it’s lost a bit of the shock factor, you know?”

  
She chuckled. “Not as exciting to see mythical beasts attack you anymore, Seaweed Brain?”

  
“No, not anymore.”

  
Annabeth reached out to hold his hand, she hadn’t realized it was smaller than his, softer. “We’ll get through this,” she bit down on her lip,“I promise.”

  
Percy looked at those stormy eyes. Ask me again when we defeat Gaea. He had a lot to look forward to. And not just with Annabeth, but with his mother and Paul and Tyson. He wanted to live. He wanted to get the lengthier version of what he’d seen after the Titan War, the growing old parts too. 

  
He placed a kiss to her lips and then whispered: “I love you”

  
She hugged him, slightly swaying thanks to the waves below. She could’ve stayed like that forever.

************

The waves were choppier than usual in Ogygia. They’ve been like that for the last few days and Calypso was starting to worry. She tried looking into the future but, as she’d told Leo, it wasn’t like looking into the past.

  
Leo

  
Her mind kept wondering back to him no matter how forcefully she tried to distract herself. She’d already sewn enough jackets to shroud a thousand mortals. And of course all of them were exact replicas of the one she’d made for Leo. 

  
You have to stop this, she told herself. She couldn’t get her hopes up, not again. As much as she liked Leo and trusted him, she didn’t trust the Fates. They’d never let him return. Besides, he had friends to save. Braver, more important friends than a silly goddess complaining about her luxurious island. 

  
“Silly.”

  
Leo and Calypso’s Auto Repair. He’d sounded so silly even bringing it up, but could she have that? Did she deserve it? “Fair,” she tried. “It’s only fair”

  
Abruptly, she stopped playing with the pile of dirt in front of her -she’d been too lost in thought to actually plant the poor blossom. She didn’t feel vengeful like she had after Percy had left. She didn’t want to curse anyone, she didn’t want revenge. She wanted justice. And it was only fair that she’d get a silly repair shop with a wonderful, scrawny boy.

  
“It’s fair.”

  
Leo had promised, a full promise. Calypso wasn’t going to doubt someone courageous enough to stand her whilst she was mad, pure enough to admire her while she worked under heat and grime. 

  
She smiled to herself as her lips tingled with his kiss. 

  
“You stupid girl,” a low chuckle made her neck stiffen, “after all this years, you’ve still learned nothing.”

**********

Leo woke up to an incredibly loud, incredibly annoying banging noise. Buford. He blamed himself for telling him to wake him up for breakfast. After all, how soft could a table knock? It’s hard to do that with no hands. 

  
With curls that looked more like odd angled screwdrivers and an inside-out shirt, the son of Hephaestus made his way towards breakfast.

He was the last one in. Even last night’s guards had managed to get there before him. That also meant Percy was there and they had to engage in that painfully awkward moment when he stared at him just starting in for a pleasant greeting and Leo failed to return the gesture thanks to the image of Calypso aggressively shoving a plant into the dirt. 

  
He didn’t hate Percy Jackson; he actually thought he was a decent guy. He just hated what he’d failed to do, how he got her hopes up. He hated the tears he’d brought to her eyes. 

  
“Okay,” Jason started once everyone was seated. He’d taken the seat to Annabeth’s left leaving her to be at the top of the table. “Frank, you had something to tell us?”

  
“Yush,” the big guy swallowed a whole pancake before speaking, “we saw a couple of Earthborn, around 12, couple hours after Annabeth spotted some Cyclops-”

  
“My best guess is a few hundred of both,” Annabeth finished for him. “They want to see how strong we are, distract us.”

  
The clang of Frank’s fork was the only sound after that. 

  
Leo expected the Couch to tell them to man up or to make some comment about beating them senseless with his bat, but he was probably a few countries away now. They were alone, no adult supervision, nothing. 

  
“We all knew this was coming. We’re ready,” for a second Leo felt assured by Percy’s words, then the moment passed. “After the battle in the house of Hades you’ve proven more than that.”

  
“They won’t hurt us too badly if Gaea is toying with us,” Piper twirled her braid which made Leo feel incredibly confident about that idea. “Right?”

  
“I bet they’ll even say ‘sorry’ after stabbing us with their friendly, sharp rocks.”

  
“Leo.” Jason gave him a stern look. He felt a light breeze pick up. Jason was nervous, he couldn’t hide that, not from him. 

  
With a bitter taste he realized that Percy was the only one that had made him feel sure, even if it was just for a second. 

  
“So we just sit around and wait?” Leo could never do that. Even thinking of it made his head want to burst into flames. They couldn’t just wait for these guys to attack! Didn’t Annabeth have some incredibly smart plan to surprise them and defeat half of them in one go?

  
“I guess so.” You’re becoming too optimistic. 

  
Percy traced the tip of his orange juice. “We train.”

 

 

  
Training, Leo soon came to learn, was hard. 

  
Of course he’d trained before in Camp Half-Blood. He even considered himself a decent fighter. Compared to your average sixteen-year-old, Leo was a good fighter. Compared to the rest of the crew?

  
Sure he could just burst into flames and beat Hazel right now, but that power had failed too many times. He needed to learn how to defeat with just a hammer in his hand. 

  
“You’re moving too slow,” Frank pointed out as his girlfriend got him good in the ribs. 

  
“Thank you for your critical analysis Zhang; I really couldn’t have guessed otherwise.”

  
Leo barely dodged another one of Hazel’s blows and barely had time to catch his breath before she had him cornered once again. That girl didn’t need Arion to move fast.

  
He gasped for breath as she kicked him in the chest. 

  
“Too slow-”

  
“I KNOW!”

  
“It’s your feet.” Leo almost jumped when he heard the son of the sea god behind him. Wasn’t he helping Piper? 

  
“What about my feet?”

  
“You don’t move them.” He stood beside him, imitating his stance. “You’re just moving your torso from side to side. Hazel’s small so she’s always going to be close but her swords got a wide arc giving you room to move around.”  
“You should probably help out Leo. I’ll go with Frank.”

  
NO! Hazel! Come back!

  
“Sure.”

  
Too late. 

  
Leo tried to look tough for about 2.4 seconds. It all kind of fell apart once Percy uncapped Riptide. “Don’t worry, it’s just practice.”

  
“I’m not worried.”

  
He lunged, Leo stepped back, he lunged again, Leo tripped over. 

  
“Calm down,” Percy ordered.

  
“I’m calm.”

  
As Leo stood up, he summoned another tool and laid down his hammer. A small wrench. When Percy lunged again Leo found that the lack of weight made him faster. He still got hit but it was easier to regain his balance. 

  
“That’s more like it!” Percy capped Riptide once again and kicked Leo’s feet apart. “Now try to move your feet more and don’t pull them too close together.”

  
“Okay.”

  
“Your weapon isn’t as powerful now so you’ll probably end up throwing or stabbing. Only the quickest fighters use a short blade so move in more on your opponent.”

  
“If you’re closer you give the opponent less space”

  
Leo nodded and tried not to show how helpful Percy was actually being. He’d pinpointed his main mistakes in all of his battles. He regretted spending so much time in the forges and less in the arena. 

  
They both stood there awkwardly. It was Leo’s turn to talk but he just didn’t know what to say to Percy Jackson. He confused him too much.

  
“I’ll go check on Piper now.”

  
Leo tried to find something to say but he’d already left.

*********

“We need to send out an Iris message.”

  
“What?”

  
“We can’t let them wonder if we’re alive or not.”

  
Reyna stood up from her seat beside a thick tree. “He’s right,” she told Nico. “It isn’t fair. They’ve already got too much to worry about.”

  
“Whatever.”

  
No one moved. 

  
“Well?” The praetor of Camp Jupiter looked at him and the couch expectantly. “You’re the Greek.”

  
“I’ve got messages of my own to send,” argued Gleeson Hedge, “Say hi to your sister for me.”

  
Nico wanted to argue but he was too tired. He knew it was pointless arguing with either one of them and a conversation with Hazel was always harmless. “Fine.” He took out one of his few remaining drachmas and stumbled towards a strong ray of sun in front of him. 

  
He didn’t specify to talk to his sister though. He just called for the Argo II.

  
“NICO,” Percy called out when the image cleared. “Are you guys okay? How’s it going?”

  
“We’re fine.” His eyes never left the floor beneath him. Never once meeting the green gaze before him. “Is Hazel there?”

  
“She’s catching on with some practice with Frank. Do you want me to call her or-”

  
“No, it’s fine.”

  
Nico could picture Percy biting his lip nervously. He was so oblivious, obtuse -as Annabeth had so perfectly described him. “Have you talked with anyone at the camps?”

  
“No,” he answered. Reyna had told them it was better for her to face Octavian in person and Chiron had been out of reach due to their locations and constant monster attacks. “Have you?”

  
“No.”

  
“Well then,” he just wanted to crash beneath a tree and sleep for the rest of the day, “we’ll keep you updated.”

  
“Wait, Nico!”

  
“What?”

  
“We’ll keep you updated?” There was hurt in his face. “What’s going on? I thought we were fine.”

  
“We are!” He couldn’t just drop it, could he? “Did you seriously expect me to just go back to the way I was after the war?”

  
“Don’t be naive, Percy”

  
“I’m not!”

  
Nico clenched his fists. What was he doing? This wasn’t Percy’s fault…  
“We need to talk, Nico.”

  
“Goodbye.”

**********

Percy was seriously getting tired of the hostility. Leo, Nico who’s next? He couldn’t understand what he’d done wrong? 

  
“Was that Nico?”

  
“Yeah,” he answered Jason.

  
“What’d he say?”

  
“He just wanted us to know they were fine.”

  
“Nothing else?”

  
Percy cocked his eyebrow at Jason. “What else could’ve he said?”

  
“Nothing.”

  
“You sure?”

  
Jason knew how to pretend. Lying was a whole other concept. “I’m positive.” He wasn’t.

  
“Why do people keep doing that?!” 

  
The blond pursed his lips making his scar look like a crescent. 

  
“If there something you need to tell me just say it already!”

  
“It’s none of my business, Percy. You’ll have to work it out with him.”

  
He watched as he left him behind with even more questions and a tighter knot of guilt.

  
Percy wasn’t mad at Jason or at Leo. He didn’t understand why they acted like that towards him, he knew Leo’s motives -his story hit way too close to home. But he didn’t get where Jason was coming from. Nonetheless, he didn’t blame them, it’s not like he’d been all that approachable lately and, as hard as it was to admit, he didn’t know them all that well. He trusted them, but that was a different thing. 

  
He couldn’t start a friendship with them and act like they’ve known each other for forever when they hadn’t; you could only fit in so much unnecessary training. It wasn’t in him to pretend anymore and, even though he saw potential, did he have time? 

  
They deserve saving, that he knew with certainty, but he had friends. Annabeth was his best friend and had been since they were both twelve but they almost never agreed and when those disagreements turned unto actual fights there’d been someone who didn’t even need to be told that Percy was upset. Satyrs could sense emotions after all. 

  
It’d never really struck him that he missed Grover -primarily because he couldn’t remember he existed for a little while- but he did, terribly so. He’d even started to long for the horribly played Hilary Duff songs on the reed pipes. 

  
Everything they did back then seemed so simple now. They got a quest and a prophecy and even during the war it was clear what they had to do. Now, it seemed that every possible chance at winning ended with someone dying a painful death, and he was starting to believe it was going to be him. How much longer could he miraculously survive? He didn’t want anyone else to die for him.

 

Knowing that the others might take a while training, he decided to grab a bite.   
“For you, G-man,” he mumbled as a pair of enchiladas appeared on his plate. 

  
_I sure love those._

_  
_ Percy tensed, he was obviously imagining voices now. Nostalgia was getting to him. 

_  
What? You can’t even recognize your best friend’s voice?_

_  
_ “Annabeth is that you?” No one answered. “Annabeth?”

  
He strained his ears for any suspicious sounds but nothing came. He was definitely losing it. The lack of sleep was seriously affecting him. 

  
He jumped when Annabeth came in sweaty and disheveled. “What is it?”  
“Did you hear that?”

  
She rolled her gray eyes at him. Normal Annabeth behavior; she was definitely not a illusion. “Hear you calling me? Yes, I did.”

  
“No, not that.”

  
“What then?!”

  
He started to explained but stopped half way. What was he going to say? He missed Grover so much he was starting to hear him in the middle of the day. 

  
_You warm my heart, Percy._

_  
_ “Okay that!”

  
His girlfriend looked at him slightly concerned and slightly annoyed. “I didn’t hear anything, Percy”

  
The empathy link.

_  
The empathy link._

_  
_ Grover?

_Hi!_

  
Percy looked at his girlfriend, excitement bubbling in his stomach for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. “The empathy link.”

  
Her eyes widened and a smile spread across her face, the gears of her fast-working mind didn’t take long to figure out was was going on. She walked over to Percy and sat beside him while he concentrated. It’d been a while since they communicated like this.

_  
Are you guys okay?_

_  
_ “We’re fine.” He could slowly start picturing a park but couldn’t quite see Grover’s location yet.

_  
You fell to Tartarus. I couldn’t believe it when I heard. I thought…._

“We’re fine, man. We made it out.”

  
Okay, Percy could tell he wanted to ask more questions but -as always- they didn’t have much time. Do you guys know when Nico and the statue might get here? Things are getting quite heated. Some of my other satyrs are keeping an eye on them and it doesn’t seem too good.

  
“I talked to Nico yesterday but he didn’t specify. They’re shadow-traveling so they shouldn’t take longer.” Annabeth squeezed his arm at the sound of that as if to ask why he hadn’t told him about his conversation with the son of Hades. “Plus, they’ve got Reyna with them so don’t worry…”

_That’s kind of impossible to do, Percy._

_  
_ “I know. I’m sorry-”

  
_Don’t be, it’s fine._

_  
_ Neither of them talked for a while. The situation in both New York and in Greece was getting worse. Percy wished he could split in two but he had his own battle to worry about. He didn’t forget the army of cyclops and other nasties waiting for them.

  
_I didn’t just call to check on you, Percy. I-_

_There’s something we have to do. It’s for the best._

  
Percy didn’t like the way his friend sounded, almost defeated. “What is it?”

_The link…_

_  
_ “What about it?”

_We need to break it._  
He looked over at Annabeth who mouthed 'what is he saying?’ “What do you mean break it?”

  
“Break the link?” Asked Annabeth. “Why?”

  
“I was just about to ask him that.”

_I don’t want to sound too gloomy but… Me and some others are going to try to hold back the Romans a bit earlier since they’ve got a lot of numbers and, well, I’ve been having a bad feeling, man._

_  
_ “Don’t you dare think like that, Grover.”

_You’re in that prophecy for a reason and if I die and we’re still linked we’re all doomed._

_  
_ He wanted to argue but suddenly it occurred to him that if someone was close to death, it was him. He hadn’t forgotten what Grover had told him the first time they talked via empathy link. If one of them were to die, so would the other. At best he’d end up in a vegetative state for the rest of his life. 

  
But not knowing weather or not his friend lived….

  
“I’ll do it under one condition.”

  
_You’re not going to stop me from fighting. That’s out of the question and Juniper has already tried, believe me. She ended up agreeing._

_  
_ “Well, you should listen to your girlfriend!”

  
“Agreed,” Annabeth added. She clearly didn’t know what Grover was saying. 

  
“Grover wants to fight the Romans before they attack and break the empathy link.”

  
“Okay, listening to your girlfriend? Kind of overrated.”

  
_Did you tell on me to Annabeth?_

_Look, I’m going to fight no matter what you say and we’re going to break this link. I’m not asking you, Percy. You know it’s for the best._

  
It suddenly struck Percy that the days of shy, awkward Grover were long gone. He wasn’t going to change his mind. Grover was taking care of him as much as he had when they were little. He’d run out of Nancy Bobofits.

  
He grabbed Annabeth’s hand. “Don’t do it, Seaweed Brain,” she told him. 

“They’ll kill him!”

  
“I’ll do it.”

  
“Percy!”

_  
Okay._

_  
_ “What do I need to do?” 

  
Annabeth stood up, letting go of his hand.

  
_Picture the link. Something that holds us together like a rope or something. It has to be breakable._

_  
_ Percy tried ferociously, but all he could picture was a steel cable. Not exactly breakable.

  
“How do you break a steel cable?”

  
_You melt it._

_  
_ Percy imagined a torch, but it seemed pitiful against the strength of the cable. Then he tried something simpler, just fire. Fire spreading through the strong metal, but it only seemed to darken the spotless color. 

  
_We need something stronger. Like a furnace or a forge._

_  
_ He tried to imagine the forages back at camp turned all the way up. He pictured it so well that he coughed up imaginary smoke and felt imaginary heat press against his face. 

  
For a moment he panicked having such a familiar feeling like the one Tartarus had given him. His lips cracked, every single breath hurting his absolutely dry lungs. 

_  
Percy! Grover brought him back. Concentrate._

_  
_ He focused the heat unto the cable, he didn’t expect the feeling that it brought. The heat didn’t burn him, but he somehow could sense the steel. He couldn’t really place it anywhere, but it was a part of him. 

_  
Almost there._

_  
_ Percy could feel the metal liquefying, slowly becoming weak. 

  
Percy, called Grover. His voice seemed distant, it could barely reach him anymore. 

_  
I’m sorry._

  
“Grover,” he called. He knew he was gone but he didn’t want to believe it. Had he made a mistake? “Grover?”

  
Annabeth asked: “Is he gone?” 

  
“I think so.”

  
Percy barely saw her cover her face with her hands from the side of his vision. “This was a mistake,” she told herself, starting to mumble to herself the way she did when she was nervous about one of her plans. She seemed more exasperated though. “Percy you should’ve convinced him?”

  
“He already had his mind set, Annabeth.” I could’ve tried harder. “I-”

  
“I did all I could.”

  
She shook her head. “You could’ve tried harder. You should’ve tried harder!”

  
“And told him what?!”

  
“Anything!” She rubbed the space between her eyebrows. He could tell she was holding back tears. “They’re going to kill him!”

  
“Why do you always patronize him? He can take care of himself,” a small bubble of annoyance surfaced above Percy’s fear. “Gods know he’s taken care of us millions of times.”

  
“I’m not stupid enough to believe he’s an easy kill! But both of us know what the Legion is capable of, they’re ruthless.”

  
Tension built inside Percy like worn out rubber. The worst thing about fighting with Annabeth was that she was almost always right. Her words seeped right into his guilt making it unbearably heavy. But still, he’d done all he could. When he said that Grover had his mind set, he was right. Nine months wasn’t going to change the fact that he knew Grover Underwood. “Cut me some slack,” he begged Annabeth getting up and reaching for her hand. 

  
“There’s no room for mistakes, Percy.” She pulled her hand away. “And if what you did was just one of them, then Grover’s dead.”

  
“What exactly did you expect me to do? Charm speak him via empathy link?” Anger, finally he’d come to anger. “You know it’s not always my responsibility to save everyone!”

  
Annabeth scoffed. “You’re so pretentious. You’re seriously going to make this about you now?”

  
“You’re the one that’s blaming me for practically killing him!” Somehow he’d ended up two inches away from her face. He had a direct view into her stormy gray eyes. It wasn’t until he took another step towards her, hands shaking and height towering a few inches over her, that he noticed the fear they held.   
He immediately stumbled backwards. The air seemed to leave his lungs as he watched Annabeth cry for Grover. She wasn’t just scared of what might happen to their Keeper, she was scared of Percy. “I’m so-”

  
Just then the alarm went off and Leo ran in covered in grease. “They’re here,” he gasped for air, having run all the way from the engine room, “if we’re looking for a time to attack it’s now.” He was completely unaware of Annabeth wiping away her escaping tears and Percy’s paler-than-usual complexion.   
Before Percy would finish, Annabeth was out of the door along with Leo and he faced yet another fight.

  
*********

Were they losing? 

  
Leo had never been one to brag about their mighty power, but it actually seemed like they were losing. It finally struck him how easy it would be for him to die. A single blow from the Cyclopes’ heavy fists, if one of those rocks managed to hit him; he wouldn’t survive. 

  
He watched as Annabeth and Piper took down a specifically nasty looking one but just as quick a dozen Earth Born came rushing back towards them. A strong gust of wind made them stumble and bought them enough time to charge but it had been painfully close, too close. Then there was Frank, who had given up on shifting and seemed to have a limp. Leo’s gut wrenched with fear for his clumsy friend, but he had his own one-eyed problem to deal with. 

  
With a bitter taste, he regretted blowing Percy off. He needed the speed, he needed the practice. The son of the sea god was putting up one hell of a fight like always, but Leo saw sweat glisten down his face, and worried.

  
“Watch out!” Before he could react, a diamond flew past his face and something hit him from behind, making him fall down with a thud. Through his hazy vision he saw Hazel ward off a couple of misshaped Earth Born with her cavalry sword. He knew he had to get up but his arms could barely hold his weight. 

  
His friends voices seemed to become distant, a small wave of goosebumps traced a line in his spine making him feel cold. Poor Leo Valdez, the Earth seemed to tell him. You’ll never win. You never have. And now, I get to take her like I did your mother. 

  
His eyes go wide as he hears the dirt chuckle beneath him. “Calypso”   
Then, just as she came and the wave of monsters hit them, they all vanish. Leo waits a few seconds before he rolls unto his back and finally manages to get up. 

“Where’d go?”

  
Everyone is still holding a fighting stance. Wiping the sweat off his brow, Jason answers: “I don’t know, the just vanished”

  
“They were toying with us!?”

  
Annabeth finally relaxes. “We always knew that is was a trap,” she says. “But something doesn’t feel right.”

  
“Well of course nothing’s right!” Answers Percy, who seems more anxious than anyone. “Didn’t you hear her?”

  
“Who?”

  
“Gaea”

  
No one seems to have an answer until Leo finally works up the nerve to say: “She said something about taking her the way she did my mother.”

  
“She-” Something seems to dawn on Percy. “She said something about our loved ones, how she would take them.” The look he now wears is now of utter terror, not helping settle Leo’s own. 

  
Percy exchanges a look with Annabeth before running back to the ship. He doesn’t check for more monsters, he doesn’t wait for them to follow. He sprints with the dread that keeps Leo rooted to the spot. 

  
“What is it?” Asks Piper after seeing the tear that trickles down her friend’s face. 

“Annabeth, what is going on?”

  
“Grover”

  
“The satyr?” Asks Jason. “The one from my dream?”

  
Calypso. Thun. Calypso. Thun. Calypso. It might be selfish of Leo to just think of her but something about the way Gaea mocked him made him believe she wasn’t referring to his siblings at Camp. “We need to get back to the ship.”  
He walks the way Percy left -too sore to run like he did- trying hard to think about the twigs snapping beneath his feet and not what might be waiting for him at the other side of the Iris message he plans to make. He’s barely aware of the others walking behind him, tired and confused. 

  
When they reach the ship Percy is sitting down, hands covering his face. Immediately, Annabeth walks towards him. “What happened?!” She asks  
“They told me that Grover was talking to Juniper,” he says, not moving. “I made them check and he was.” Before Annabeth can sigh in relief, Percy looks up. His eyes are red with fresh tears and his bloodshot green eyes are looking at a watery image Leo failed to notice before.

  
It’s a small apartment, New York is Leo’s best guess, and it looks like it’s been hit by a tornado. The furniture is sprawled hazardously and there are claw marks in the tapestry. 

  
Suddenly Leo is struck with the fact that Percy has a mother, and that Percy is from New York. 

  
They all jump when he gets up and punches right through the image, making it vanish. With a frail look, Annabeth reaches for him, but he steps back. 

  
“Everyone should check if they’ve taken anyone else.” He says and then leaves. He doesn’t storm out, in fact, his footsteps are so light they make no sound, but everyone hears them at the edge of their stomach and they all flinch when he leaves the door ajar with a silent slam of defeat.

  
********  
Thinking about how close they were to getting Thalia makes Jason feel sick even after just having talked to her. He immediately sent an Iris message of his own after the news on Percy’s mother and had gotten some serious chest pains thanks to his uncontrollable beating heart. 

  
“Jason!” She’d called when her blurry image appeared before him. He wanted to cry with relief. “I was just about to call. Are you okay?”

  
“Yes, well-”

  
Her deep blue eyes grew wide. “What? Did anyone get hurt? Where’s Annabeth?”

  
“We’re all fine but,” he got a bitter taste remembering the look of horror in Percy’s face, “they took Percy’s mom.”

  
Jason had heard quite a bit about Sally Jackson, both Thalia and Annabeth held a warm affection for her and he knew how much she meant to Percy. He remember how jealous he was of him just a couple of days before. The closest he ever got to a parent was Dakota and -not that he didn’t appreciate his friends energetic talks about having two pints of Koolaide- that didn’t really count since he was taking care of him most of the time. 

  
Now he just felt guilty for ever being jealous of Percy. Maybe he’d gotten a good mother when none of them had, but he’d also gotten a whole prophecy to himself. Jason’s situation was by no standards better than Percy, he’d lead the army after all, but that’s what he’d trained for his whole life. That was his life, Percy had a mother to lose. 

  
It was heartbreaking to see his friend like that. They’d taken from him the one person he needed to protect. It was cruel what they’d done. It was just cruel.   
“Oh Gods,” his sister had sobbed. “Do we know if-”

  
“No.”

  
She nodded and wiped a couple tears off. “We’re coming to join you in Greece,” she announced. “The hunters are set and I know that it’s what Artemis would want.”

  
“Thalia you don’t understand-”

  
“I wasn’t asking for your permission, Jason!” He was taken back by her tone, but almost immediately her face softened. “And I do understand. This isn’t my first war, little brother.”

  
She passed her hand through the message and the image disappeared.

 

 

  
Jason tried to concentrate less on Thalia and more on the issue at hand after having talked to her. They couldn’t reach Nico, Reyna and the Couch. 

  
Jason tried to feel optimistic by telling himself that they probably already left Greece and were traveling so fast to New York that they couldn’t be reached, but there was also the possibility that, like Percy’s mother, they’ve been “taken”. He didn’t yet want to give them for dead, Gaea could be using them as bait.   
“Nothing.” Hazel huffed after furrowing her brow in concentration for almost an hour. “Maybe he’s traveling too fast. I don’t think I could reach him anyways if he was shadow traveling.”

  
Jason shook his head. “They’ve already should’ve called.” He insisted. “Percy talked to Nico a few days ago, he said he’d keep us updated and after this…”  
Piper put a conforming hand on his shoulder. “It’s hard enough to Iris message with the state of the gods it must be even more difficult while moving around so fast and with that many monsters on your case.”

  
Neither Hazel nor Jason seemed convinced. He could tell Piper was worried too, she usually snuck in a few drops of charm speak into her voice when he was upset. At least they knew her dad was okay. 

  
He still felt incredibly lucky for her comfort. He knew it was hard for her to see him worry about Reyna, it made her anxious. But she’d come to terms with it and Jason couldn’t and shouldn’t hide his affection for Reyna. He had been a terrible friend ever since they met again in Rome and she didn’t deserve that. Now there was this to top it all off. 

  
He took Piper’s hand and tried to calm down. He couldn’t think straight when he was this worried. Everyone was just so tense, they usually had Percy to relieve some of that tension but no one expected him to barge in with a goofy grin on his face after what happened. He’d even seemed strange before all of this. “I’m going to go check on Percy.” He told her. She pecked him in the lips and went back to trying to find the others with Hazel and Frank.

Percy wasn’t in his cabin or in Annabeth’s cabin. Jason remembered the time Frank had found them both and headed towards the stables. When he got there, he heard them arguing and stopped right away.   
There was a part of him that was dying to go in there but Annabeth was there, Percy would be fine. At least he hoped he would, they needed him.

  
*******  
The goddess could make Leo’s favorite clothes non-flammable, tell off the Earth Mother and look incredibly beautiful whilst yelling at him, but no communication device. Not even a trace that she’d ever been real. But Leo seriously doubted that he could imagine such a realistic kiss. 

  
“Maybe they can’t reach her either,” he told Buford, but even as he said it he wanted to spit. Lies taste bitter. 

  
He might tend to drift off when people talk to him (especially if said talker is a goddess and is angry at him) but he could never forget a thing Calypso had said to him. He knew that gods often visited her, they could get into her island. They could taker. 

  
He felt like two people, part of him -the part that seemed to be screaming inside his head- wanted to run all around the ship and yell at his friends to do something. But the other couldn’t quite process it all; that part seemed to be in control of his body since he sat completely still. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. 

  
“Leo?”

  
He knew they couldn’t kill her. 

  
“Leo!”

  
He didn’t even jump once Piper stuck her head in his vision, yelling his name. 

“What?”

  
“Are you okay? You look like you’re going to throw-up or something.”

  
“I just might.”

  
He barely registers her sitting down in the floor besides him. Her hands around her legs as she asks: “Is this about the girl you met when you were gone?”   
“They took her too, I know it.”

  
Piper stays quiet and doesn’t get a change to talk since Annabeth walks in looking pale and tired. “Piper we should-” she stops when she notices Leo. “They’ve taken her too, haven’t they?” 

  
It’s a difficult situation, this one. Leo always assumed that Annabeth didn’t even want to hear the name “Calypso”, but right one she doesn’t seem jealous or bitter. Right now Annabeth looks worried. 

  
It’s dumb that it took him this long to figure it out, but he gets it. He gets that what Percy did was wrong, but doing one wrong thing doesn’t make you a bad person. He didn’t even make that mistake on purpose; at one point, he tried to fix it. 

  
There wasn’t such a thing as good and evil, even if it hurt to admit it. What would he have done if he’d had an Annabeth of his own waiting for him? Sure, it was different, but he was no better than Percy. He’d just had less complicated circumstances and nothing to lose. 

  
“Look, Leo,” the daughter of Athena told him, her eyes strong, “we’re not letting them do anything to her. We’re not letting them win.” 

  
“I can’t even reach her. It’s impossible to go back.” 

  
She seemed to ponder for a bit, scrunching her face in the way that you could almost hear her urge the wheels in her head turn. “We’ll figure something out.”  
He nodded, not feeling afraid of her for the first time. A few month ago he would’ve laughed at the idea of Annabeth ever considering him a friend, but now it didn’t seem so laughable and she didn’t seem so scary. “C'mon,” offered Piper helping him up, “we should help the others look for Reyna.”

********  
Sixteen countries later, Reyna barely felt the nausea of shadow travel. The moment her feet seemed to hit solid ground, the monsters came just like they had been coming since they left Epirus. She hadn’t slept in what felt like days and their food was scarce but they still managed to fight whilst being attached to an enormous statue. 

  
“Stay close to Nico,” ordered Gleeson, who was finishing off what seemed like a Doberman mixed with a seal -a telkhine he’d heard him call it.   
She obeyed him knowing that the son of Pluto -or Hades apparently- was in no shape to fight, much less stand up. They’d been planning to grant him more breaks but they hadn’t had one second to set their weapons down.   
Reyna slashed through a stampede of venti and couldn’t help missing her own horse, they could’ve used some support in the skies. She pushed aside the memory of Jason zipping through the air and finished off a vampire woman. But they simply kept coming. They hadn’t even been able to advance a single step.   
She hated asking him but: “Hey Nico! Do you think you could manage a small jump?”

  
Reyna waited as he stuffed a few squares of what they called ambrosia into his mouth. “Give me some more space,” his voice was barely a whisper and she feared that he might not make the travel. She was about to tell him that they could wait when he got up shakily. “Hurry!”

  
She called to Gleeson and told him to back them up. He didn’t seem happy about not being able to finish them off but he did as asked. She slashed and cut at the monsters, her main goal not being killing but making them retreat at least a little bit. It seemed to be working but her arm was much too sore and she could barely see through the sweat that slipped from her forehead. 

  
She felt a prickle in the back of her neck and watched as a venti -this one shaped more like the demonic angels she was used to seeing- made his way towards Nico. She cursed herself from letting him slip away and tried to think. She couldn’t run towards Nico right now, she’d be throwing away they’re work. She knew that he could call to an an army of skeletons and defend himself but they would leave the shadow traveling option out of the question. The knife strapped to her leg grew heavy. They weren’t in any position to throw away weapons but it was the only choice. 

  
She slashed once more at the creatures in front of her, making a particularly nasty gash in one of the Eartborn’s arms, and pulled out her knife in a swift motion. The knife could either kill the venti or go right through him, she didn’t hesitate. Pulling back her arm like a lasso and then bringing it back quickly, the knife left her fingers. She’d aimed at the space between where his eyes should be. 

  
She didn’t miss. 

  
She didn’t have time to congratulate herself and immediately went back to the small army she was previously dealing with at one point a snake lady -one of the empousai- caught one of her blows, making pain flare up her arm. She let out a horrible laugh and Reyna watched as her friend readied to finish her off. “Not today,” she grunted. Before they both could react, she dove her left fist straight into the first one’s nose and took advantage of the others surprise to slash through her armor. 

  
“Now!” She heard Nico call. She kicked at an incoming Cyclops and ran towards him, Gleeson close behind. She was please try surprised by the distance she managed to make the retreat. 

  
Nico didn’t look much better once they got back to him but there was no other option. They quickly strapped the huge statue to themselves and took hold of Nico’s cold hand. “I probably won’t get you as far as the Brooklyn bridge,” he told them. “I don’t know if you can steal a car or-”

  
“What are you talking about?” Asked Reyna. 

  
He seemed irritated by her interruption but continues anyway. “I’ll take us to New York, but I can’t land directly on Camp Half-Blood, it’s too specific and it takes an amount of strength I don’t have.”

  
“That’s an overseas jump.”

  
“I know.” His grip seemed to get colder. “Listen to me. You take and exit on Route 25 A,”

  
Reyna tried to keep up before the Couch cut it. “You’re wasting time,” he said, “I already know where the camp is.”

  
“She needs to know in order to get in. She needs to be invited in.” He looked at her, his black eyes like coal. “I, Nico Di Angelo son of Hades, allow you to cross into Camp Half-Blood. Now,” he continued as if he just hadn’t invited Reyna and her Legion into their enemy ground, “after you take the exit you have to head through the woods along the North Shore until you see some hills appear on your left. Stop when you reach Farm Road 3.141. You’ll have to hike from there, even though I assume that’s where the Legion has set their camp.”

  
Reyna stopped her nerves as the battled to take over her. She dreaded the conversation that needed to take place in order for her to pass but somehow she could picture the Greek camp. Strawberry fields and an arrangement of cabins, a camp worth saving and worth fighting alongside to. 

  
She stared back at Nico and nodded. “C'mon!” Gleeson told them. They were about to be overwhelmed. She felt the poison of their blades on her skin, but before any real damage had could be done they melted into the shadows.

*************

They were almost in Athens. After all the fights, all the things that had been thrown their way, they would soon arrive to their last resting place or the insured safety of their homes. 

  
After all that happened, Percy wanted to be just that; he either died or he didn’t. But that wasn’t the case anymore. As always, they wouldn’t let him have anything easy. Even if he did deserve it. 

  
At first, seeing his old apartment destroyed and sending off his best friend unto his probable death, had made him sick with anger. He’d rarely ever felt wrath like that one; a wrath that moved him to control poison and kill monster after monster. He wanted to scream at the gods, curse them for giving him this fate. But what was the use?

  
Gods didn’t change, gods didn’t feel guilt or compassion and he wasn’t going to change that. 

  
Now, as he stood against the rails he saw how pointless it all was. He’d never though of it that way and that scared him even more. A scar of his own was cutting across his face. “No,” he mumbled. “I’m not him.”

  
He needed to save her, he needed to save all of them because that’s what he fought for, not the gods and their stupid feuds. He clenched his fist around Riptide and headed downstairs, to Annabeth’s cabin. He’d acted like a coward yesterday, he wasn’t thinking straight. She was just trying to help. 

  
“Annabeth,” he calls once he opens the door. She’s hunched over her desk, she no longer has Daedalus’ laptop so she stares at her Yankee’s cap instead. It’s only when he steps through the threshold that he notices her tears, and his heartbreaks. 

  
Seeing Annabeth cry used to be a rare occasion; one in which he never knew what to do and only worsened the situation with his stuttering tongue. This past weeks have been full of tears for the both of them, and he hated it. “Hey,” he called, making her turns right away and uselessly wipe away her tears, “I’m fine, we’re fine.”

  
“No, we’re not,” she sobbed, “How can we possibly be?” 

  
He doesn’t have an answer.

  
“Everything that could’ve gone wrong went wrong! There’s no plan I can come up to that can solve that! And now they’ve taken Sally and Grover’s-”

  
“Stop it,” he told her. “We can’t do this now. I know it’s too much to ask Annabeth and there’s nothing I hate more but we need to do this.”

  
“I don’t think I can.”

  
He knelt beside her. “I’m terrified too, Wise Girl. And I can’t assure you we’ll make it, but we owe it to ourselves to try.”

  
She looked at him and some of that old glint came back to her eyes. The mind of glint that she gave him when they were in different teams during capture the flag and she knew that he stood no chance. He felt overwhelmed by her strength, but it was one if the few things that kept him going. Some things never change.  
He kissed her, pulling her in by her shirt and not even thinking about what he was doing. He just did.   
*********  
Annabeth almost broke the kiss with a smile. The memory of her fourteen-year-old self played in her mind. She remembered thinking that Percy Jackson couldn’t possibly hold off an army of telkhines but that she wanted to kiss him anyway because it wasn’t his fighting skills that made an annoying batch of butterflies sprout at her stomach. 

  
She dared pull away from his lips. “Everyone should be having dinner about now.”

  
He nodded and stood up. They walked hand in hand towards the dining hall where the rest of the crew waited. There was a frail whisper of a conversation that stopped when they walked in. Jason failed at hiding the concern on his face and Hazel tighten the grip she had on her boyfriend’s hand. 

  
This all went unnoticed by Percy, or maybe he just decided to ignore it. “Any news from Reyan, Nico…?” They all shook their heads. “We have to trust they’re okay. We’ll keep trying to reach them.” His eyes scanned their friends until they stopped at Leo. He managed to look worse than any of them. They seemed to exchange a conversation for a moment, understanding crossing both their faces as they looked away. 

  
Percy knew about Calypso. A small part of her didn’t want to believe it, but that part of her was selfish and she willed it to shrink until it was barely present. “What about the mortals?” She asked eager to ease the tension.  
“What about them?” Jason answered. 

  
“Are they noticing anything? They must be waiting for us in Athens and we already know they’ve never been worried about hiding themselves from civilians.”

  
Frank seemed to consider this, for the first time apparently. “We actually haven’t checked,” he admitted. “Leo, do we have any television signal?”

  
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t. The best TV is in the Couch’s room.”

  
No one hesitated, and in no time they were all crammed inside the messy cabin. No one was happy with the arrangements (personally, Leo thought that Frank might be a little bit too close to him) but they were all inclined to see what was happening in the outside world. Annabeth had made a fair point and her fair points almost always turned out to be a fair plan.

  
The TV came on and immediately the local news came on. The reporter -a young man that tried too hard it look in his thirties- talked in rapid fire Greek and seemed to be reasonably excited about….something about a fancy party was Frank’s best guess. 

  
“A gala,” murmured Percy, “a gala in the Parthenon?”

  
“Well, only Gaea would want to throw a party.” 

  
Hazel’s small fist hit a wall. “That twisted, evil-” Eyebrows went up and steps were taken back. Well, so long for Hazel being 'innocent’ one. 

  
“Okay!” The new Praetor seemed like he was trying hard not to laugh. “So, the party, what do we do about it?”

  
Annabeth didn’t even bother suppressing her amused smile and answered: “It’s more of a gala. They’re opening a new display.”

  
“What about?”

  
“Famous Heroes and They’re Tragic Deaths.”

  
Percy snorted. “At least we know she’s got a sense of humor.”

  
Annabeth ignored him -the two seemed to be a bit more relaxed given the circumstances- and went on, “We need to find a way to sneak in there without causing a big commotion. We’ve gotten enough attention as it is and we should keep the mortals as much in the dark as possible.”

  
“We can go as guests, at least a few of us,” offered Jason, “the rest can keep watch outside.”

  
“The act can only last so long,” argued Percy, “they’re not hiding this because they want us to be there. They already used their decoy so this time we should except something bigger coming our way.”

  
Frank added: “It still seems like they’re trying to distract us from something.”   
Hazel -now a bit more calm- seemed to agree with her boyfriend. “Still,” she said, “our best chance is to sneak into the party like Jason said.” She turned towards Piper. “You probably look best with a dress you should go.”

  
“Fine.” She didn’t seem too happy about the dress part. “But I’m taking Percy and Annabeth with me, my Greek sucks.”

  
“Because Percy’s Greek is so great.”

  
Leo was given an annoyed look and a rude remark in a surprisingly perfect Greek. “Okay, ” Percy continued, “so us three go to the gala and the rest keep a tight perimeter around the building. It’s likely that we’ll have to buy time while you guys evacuate everyone.”

  
It was great finally planing everything, as a team. They no longer had Couch or Nico but there was a reason them Seven were chosen, for this moment where, in the middle of a war, the could discuss a perfect strategy and trust each other to follow it through.

  
“We have 24 hours till the gala, we should get some rest.”

********

Leo dreamt of a damp cave. He could hear the irritating drip- drop of an unknown leak and felt the cold radiating from the pale walls. It all seemed sinister, but it became terrifying when he heard a crude laugh bounce of the stone. “You’ve got guts, girl.” He knew that voice, that arrogance. “But sadly that won’t be enough to keep you or your puny boyfriend alive.”

  
“You underestimate me, Hercules.” Leo’s stomach went in knots and not because of the mention of that jerk’s name. “I’m a goddess as well and, unlike you, I’ve got powerful people on my side.”

  
He laughed even harder, giving him the urge to punch his frustratingly handsome face. “You’re the one that underestimates the Earth Mother’s power,” Leo’s vision seemed to be getting closer until he saw her, Calypso. Her beautiful hair was covered in dirt and some loose strand clung to her sweat-covered forehead. She had a stubborn look on her face that made him proud, but he didn’t fail to notice how her back rested against the cavern, as if she needed the support. 

  
Her eyes finally found his and his breath hitched.

  
“Don’t underestimate me, Calypso!”

********

“You know,” said Jason behind he, she hadn’t even heard him come in, too busy trying to control her hair, “if you’re trying to blend in, your failing miserably.”  
Piper gave him a look through her mirror. “Don’t be cheesy Jason. Plus,” she added, “Drew would die if she knew I was attending a gala without washing my hair.”

  
He chuckled. 

  
“Is everyone else ready?” She asked. 

  
“Yeah.”

  
“We should get going then.”

As predicted, Annabeth and Percy we’re completely tied up with their own outfits. In Percy’s case, literally. “You know,” he told her as she walked unto the deck, “I already carry a weapon I don’t need another.”  
“It’s a bow tie not a knife.”

  
“Well obviously!” Somehow he’d gotten his thumb stuck inside the knot. “A knife a could handle, this is impossible!”

  
“What are you complaint about? Bow ties are cool!” Cut in Annabeth who seemed to be battling with the high heels Piper had miraculously found for her. “You’re all set! I still need to do my stupid hair.”

  
“You look great, Annabeth.”

  
She slapped his arm. “Don’t just stand there, Piper!” She scolded her. “HELP ME!”

  
“Calm down.” She turned towards her boyfriend and silently asked him to help Percy with his bow tie. “It’s too hot right now your hair will go crazy. Let’s go to my cabin.”

Piper had underestimated Annabeth’s hair. She’d faced monsters calmer than her vicious, golden locks. “There,” she sighed. “I’m done.”

  
“Finally!”

  
She really did look great, she opted for a dark blue gown that clung to her nicely and showcased her back spectacularly. And, of course, Piper’s hair do really did tie it all up nicely. She looked great with her hair down, but she guessed it was harder to gut a cyclops with loose strands of her getting in your mouth. “Let’s go,” she said risking one last glance in the mirror. 

  
Once again in the deck, Piper took Jason’s shoulder. 

  
“Well, this is as close to promo as we’re getting.” Annabeth pointed out.   
Percy groaned beside her. “I hate dancing!”

  
For some reason that made Annabeth laugh, which made Percy blush, which made Piper wish the two would just get a room. But it wasn’t until Jason discussed the last detailed of the plan with Leo and Annabeth cut in one last time to make sure he got it and Percy reminded the time that Piper felt truly nervous. 

  
It wasn’t even the risky dress she was modeling (even though she wasn’t a fan of yellow but then again they’re “shopping” style hadn’t really given them many options) or the fact that Jason looked like James Bond in his suit. No, she was starting to realize that she might die. Not just might, probably. She probably wouldn’t see her father again, or her siblings -Lacy, even Drew- it was all coming to an end. It felt that way, or at least the start of it. They’re whole quest had been exhausting, but it never really struck as a war. 

  
As she walked away from the Argo II and into the city of Athens, she felt the war. She felt it in the extra seconds that Hazel held her gaze as they parted ways, none of them wanted to say goodbye, so they didn’t. Jason’s grip was a but too tight and Percy might’ve gotten his smile back, but his eyes were still so sad, so heavy. 

  
So heavy.

  
Suddenly, she stopped walking. “You okay?” Asked Jason. Both Annabeth and Percy stopped as well. She tried to say that she was fine but the words seemed to stick to her throat and didn’t make it out. “Pipes,” insisted Jason, “you don’t look so good.”

  
“Maybe we should catch up with the others-”

  
“No!” She managed to say, she knew that this was the right way to go. She couldn’t put the whole mission in jeopardy for something as silly as fear. “I’m fine.”

  
“Hey,” she was surprised to see Percy being the one addressing her, “we’re all terrified, Piper. We’re only human.”

  
“No, we’re demigods.” She insisted.

  
“Yes, and just like we forget we’re mortal, we can forget we are.” Then, Piper saw something else in his green eyes, and he felt it in Jason’s grip and in Annabeth’s set jaw. They were all terrified. “But there’s nothing wrong with being aware of the fact that we can die and it doesn’t make us weak, it makes us honest.”

  
She nodded and they kept walking. Piper hoped that they lived so she could get to know Percy, watch him make her friend happy and listen to her complain about how dense he could be. She wanted to live and get to a point in her and Jason’s relationship where they felt as comfortable as they did. She wanted Leo to make her laugh and watch Hazel grow-up beside Frank.   
She wanted it all, a life. And she would fight for it.

  
**********

“They’re preparing to attack,” growled Clarisse at Chiron, who’d insisted on them 'standing by’ as the Romans grew more and more restless, “we need to attack first. They out-number us by too much.”

  
“I’m not one to agree with Clarisse,” cut in Will Solace as he tested the point to one of his arrows, everyone was ready to fight, “but maybe I could send-”  
“No.” Chiron hadn’t even opted to get out of wheelchair mode. “We must trust Nico, Reyna and Gleeson to arrive with the Athena Parthenos any minute now. We’ll spare as many lives as possible.”

  
“Well we ain’t saving any just sitting around!” Clarisse punched the ping-pong table where she once stabbed her knife almost a year ago. “Even the satyrs set out!”

  
“They’re just holding them back.” The old centaur didn’t seem so sure himself. 

“My decision is final. We will not attack the Romans…..unless they attack first.”

  
“Any minute then.”

  
He sighed and rolled out of the wreck room. For once, all the counselors seemed out of things to say. Most of them remembered the Titan War and didn’t want any part of another one, especially one that included angry Romans and Giants. Still, they were siting ducks.

  
“Do you think Annabeth would’ve attacked by now?” Asked Travis Stoll. His brother stayed silent but Rachel -who’d now been invited to all counselor meetings- seemed to ponder over it. 

  
“I don’t know,” she said. “What’s the smarter choice?”

  
“We should wait,” murmured Malcom, “but be prepared for an attack. I agree with Chiron and I trust Annabeth.”

  
“Annabeth isn’t here!”

  
“And do you think that what they’re facing is any nicer?”

  
Clarisse bit her lip. “I trust Annabeth too. It’s the Romans that make me nervous. We’ve never dealt with them, how can we trust them?”

  
“We can trust them,” Nyssa cut in, speaking for the first time, “because Jason is Roman, and last I checked he didn’t try to kill us.”

  
“But they’re not all Jason,” she argued back, “what about that Octavian guy?”

  
“Reyna knows how to take care of him,” Rachel’s tone was final, “I agree that we are wasting time just sitting here so I purpose you go and take care of whatever needs taking care of.”

  
They watched her leave and knew she was heading to her own cabin to try and make some contact with the gods. So far all her attempts were hopeless but she seemed to be getting something. Rachel had acted quite normal since coming back from her little talk with the roman Praetors, and that was weird.

 

 

  
Rachel had started drawing again. Not painting -she was always doing that- but doodling the way she did before the last war. Everywhere she went she found herself writing something in Ancient Greek and even Latin. Last time she didn’t understand any of it, and it wasn’t as if her Greek was any good; but she understood enough to be scared now.

  
“C'mon already!” It was useless trying to make contact with the gods. Even Apollo had stayed completely silent and that was a miracle. 

  
She flopped down on a lounge chair by the pin ball machine and nervously passed her thumb through her blue comb. She’d been carrying it around for the last week, hoping it would bring some sort of good vibe. It didn’t seem to be doing much of anything but it reminded her of the time she’d spent in the Labyrinth with Percy and Annabeth. Rachel couldn’t believe she was looking back at those days as the easy ones. “At least both of you were here back then,” she murmured to herself.

  
She saw so much for them and the rest of the seven. Some people thought being the Oracle just meant getting your body hijacked by an old spirit now and again; and that wasn’t a complete lie but there was a lot more to it. It was like studying and memorizing everything for a test without even noticing. You just woke up knowing. 

  
In occasions it was more than helpful but there were some things that most people didn’t know for a reason. She didn’t want to see her friends die but every time she found herself carving their initials into her jeans, she seemed to be doing into their grave stone. To storm or fire the world must fall. None of their attempts would stop them from that and everyone seemed alarmed when she mentioned it, but that was the line if the prophecy that worried her the least. To her it felt like a new beginning.

  
An oath to keep with a final breath. She’d hoped that that line was completed but it didn’t feel that way. It felt near and she knew the oath had been made, many years ago but -somehow- very recently as well. “For once!” She told the ceiling, yelling at any god that could possibly be hearing. “For once I’d like ONE clear message!”

  
“You tell them.”

  
“Clarisse,” the daughter of Ares hadn’t even come in but Rachel knew, “I’m busy.”

  
“Yelling at the ceiling and what not?”

  
“Exactly.”

  
She ignored Rachel and sat down beside her. “It feels just like last time.” 

Clarisse seemed to be chewing her lip in a much too nervous manner. “I can’t sit around and so nothing….again.”

  
“Is that what this is about?” Clarisse didn’t answer but it was all clear to Rachel now. She felt a trickle of sympathy for her friend. She still hadn’t forgiven herself for the stunt Silena had to pull in order for the Ares cabin to fight in the last war. She wanted to tell her it wasn’t her fault, but she’d decided nit to fight. “You couldn’t control what and how she did it, Clarisse.”

  
“Don’t…”

  
“She was meant to save the people she saved the way she saved them. It was the only way she could’ve forgiven herself for her past actions.” She laid a hand in her shoulder which Clarisse surprisingly didn’t shrug off. “You need to find a way to forgive yourself now.”

  
“That’s what I’m trying to do! I won’t sit around like last time!”

  
“This is exactly what Gaea wants.” Somehow she found new assurance in her words. She’d always known that, in order for her plan to work, she needed both camps to turn against each other; but her gut seemed to be assuring her now. There was a crucial moment about to happen. “This is exactly what Gaea wants.”

  
“Okay but-”

  
“She going to send them again!” Eidolons. “We need to-”

  
“Too late silly mortal!” The voice of Gaea vibrated through her dark walls. “Did you actually think you would see me coming?”

  
Outside, the organized yelling of battle started to rise. Both girls flinched whenever they heard a sword or an arrow zip. 

  
“You’re all out of heroes. Who’s going to save you now?” 

  
Rachel felt a warm breeze hit her from behind. With painful realization she noticed that it was just like the breeze they’ve felt in the maze, when they talked to Pan. She remembered how he’d given each of them a message, except Nico.   
Or had he?

  
“This is a camp full of heroes!” She spat at the goddess. “Two camps, actually!” Clarisse gave her a look that she ignored. Rachel’s confidence grew, she could actually hear Gleeson Hedge yelling at Reyna and Nico to hurry up. “They’re close,” she told Clarisse, “tell the others.”

  
Before she could be stopped she ran outside and towards Thalia’s pine tree. Clarisse knew it was hopeless to stop her, gods know how she ran so fast.   
Gaea seemed to be gone by now, so she was left there to process the Oracle’s less-than-clear message. She watched Rachel pass the camp boundaries and tensed. “Hey!” She would never hear her. Before she was completely out of sight, she stopped. She seemed to be talking to someone and it wasn’t until she started hugging them that she knew.   
***********

Leo wished Jason was with them instead that down there. It seemed rational that he would be assigned of 'watching out’ since he was one of the two that could fly, but he was aware that Jason was much better with people than probably any of them. They had to blend in and if Leo was down there a and he suddenly got hit with a questions he’d probably set himself on fire again.   
It was both good and bad that they got to sit around and wait. They’d barely had time to take a breath in a long while, but it all seemed to calm. He wouldn’t be surprised if the small tuft of grass that stuck out from the ruins they’d settled with turned into a carpoi and suddenly decided that he would look better as grain. The anticipation was destroying his nervous system. It was ridiculous thinking about relaxing now, all he could think about was the plan and his dream.  
A small part of him wished he’d been wrong about Gaea taking Calypso, he wouldn’t wish any of his loved ones to get hurt but with her there was zero possibilities of contact. He knew that Annabeth could do the impossible along with Piper, and they had promised, but it all seemed like a whole bunch of ifs. He needed certainty.

  
Frank dropped beside him, turning back into a less feathery form. “Everything seems to be going fine,” he announced, “as long as Percy doesn’t start dancing again, they’ll be fine.”

  
Leo gave him a nod and watched as he set off again. He pulled out his recently-made radio and updated Hazel. Nothing had gone wrong, yet.

  
“Don’t think too happy, Leo.” He whispered to himself. 

  
He pulled out his binoculars and tried to spot his friends. After searching for fifteen minutes he found them huddled around some sort of display in a glass box. They looked completely normal, like the sons and daughters of an important politician. There were lots of politicians there, it made Leo wonder how exactly were they going to cover up the possible destruction of one of the world’s most important monuments. The Mist only went so far. If I don’t die I’ll probably spend the rest of my life in prison. 

  
The ceremony started; he shared a nervous look with Frank above him. They all gathered deeper inside the building -giving Leo a poor visual- and some important looking man and women started making speeches that he couldn’t possibly hear. There was so stoning odd about it all, it seemed like they were mocking the guests. He adjusted his binoculars to try and get a good look at their faces but they kept moving. He called Frank. 

  
“What is it?” He asked once he came down.

  
“Don’t those people look weird to you?” He gave him a look that told him he was thinking the same thing. “I can’t see their faces, try to get closer.”

  
He nodded and took off. 

  
It didn’t take him long to come back down. “They’re definitely not human. This is it.”

  
Annabeth had warned them to look out for anything suspicious even before any commotion started. If a fight broke out, they needed enough time to evacuate the mortals. 

  
He tried to get a visual again as Frank told Hazel, after a lot of adjusting he got it. Leo went pale, he knew that woman she’d almost convinced him and Jason to kill each other. “It’s Medea,” he told Frank. “She must’ve gotten though the doors before she closed them.”

  
The son of Mars had heard enough about that woman. “We need to get those people out of there now.”

  
He didn’t have to tell him twice. They both scattered to their respective exits, Leo headed to the one up front while Frank went back and Hazel took the lower one. Once he got there he waited until he heard Frank’s arrow break the glass. Yep, they were definitely going to jail.

*********

Percy felt like everyone was staring at him. He wasn’t being vain, gods no, but it was like everyone around him knew he was a demigod. He felt like the first time he’d gone to Camp Jupiter, with all the lares whispering behind his back. Even though he had Frank and Hazel in that moment, they didn’t know each other too well and he was glad that this time he did. Somehow -even knowing that he was probably going to die soon- he felt safe. 

  
“If someone comes and tries to make conversation with you just go with it.” Annabeth told them. Her Greek put Piper’s and Percy’s to shame but they all had to be in a look out for Jason who might thrive in Latin but failed to convince anyone with his Greek. 

  
After a while of just standing around and looking at the displays, Jason and Piper drifted. She and Annabeth seemed to share a brief conversation with their eyes and for some reason Annabeth looked grateful. 

  
He took her hand and they walked to some painting Percy briefly looked at before laying eyes in the real work of art. “You look amazing,” he told Annabeth. His insides seemed to melt just like that time he’d seen her in Circe’s island with that white dress. 

  
“Thanks.” She wasn’t looking at the painting either, to amazed by the building itself. “I can’t believe we’re actually here. It’s like everything lead up to this moment in a way. I always imagined myself coming here with you.”

  
Percy didn’t know what to make of that. He’d pictured it too, after all, she’d been taking about coming here since they met. He’d had something different in mind though, the possible death wasn’t new, the war was a surprise. “Well,” he tried to forget about it all and just acknowledge that -like she said- they were finally here, “what do you think? Is it a huge disappointment?”

  
“I had a lifetime to visualize it, so, yeah, a little.”

  
“Things tend to loose their magic once you realize how real they are.”

  
“I guess so.” Sighed and turned to check on Piper and Jason. “I’ll just have to come up with a new building to fantasize about.”

  
He smiled at that thought but felt his already heavy heart weight a little more with sadness. Annabeth really did deserve to live. He looked at her and how full of life she was and he almost forgot the image the Death Mist had given her, it seemed impossible that someone so wonderful and powerful could ever stop existing. “I love you.” He didn’t whisper or mumble, he said it clearly enough for the group beside them to hear and the words made his fearful vision turn sharp.  
Her gray eyes looked back at him. “I love you too.”

  
He was leaning in to kiss her when a woman caught his eye. She was attractive and timeless in a way that she could’ve been twenty or forty but still manage to look like royalty. Jason had caught sight of her too and neither him or Piper seemed happy to see her. “They know her,” she heard Annabeth whisper behind him. “I think I know her.”

  
All four of them watched as she walked across the long marble room to an array of chair near a small stage that has been set up. Percy’s radar went off at the sight of the rest of them. Nine of them were human, he knew it. 

  
“That’s Medea!”

  
He remembered her from when Jason had explained their quest back at Camp Jupiter. “The sorceress?”

  
None of the dared go near them, the last thing they wanted was to make them angry with all these mortals around. Percy tried to scan their faces, to see if he could recognize anyone else and, of course, he did. That sorceress must’ve had an amazing control over the Mist as to hide such terrible creatures. “They’re all there.” All the enemies he’d fought as a kid had made a nightmare-like comeback. He half expected them to find his face in the crowd and kill him on the spot, but they were working for Gaea and she didn’t show that much mercy. 

  
“They should be here soon,” Annabeth told him, “let’s try to het closer.” She nodded towards Piper and the four of them walked closer to the stage.   
They were just about to get there when Medea stood up and walked over to the microphone that had been set up in the podium.

 “Good evening allies,” she didn’t seem to be addressing the guests, Percy realized that there must be even more monsters mixed into the crowd and stopped, “today all our hard work finally pays off. Both camps are finally at the verge of war,” the crowd behind her roared along with some within the crowd, everyone else just looked confused. Medea brushed them off with a smile, she was using charmspeak he could feel it. “All the heroes that bathed in the glory of taking away what was ours and sending us to Tartarus will pay! The blood of Olympus will be spilled and our mistress will rule generously!”

  
There was more cheering. Mead’s charmspeak made the mortal guests glassy eyed, as if they too had been wronged by Gaea. Percy felt their anger, the curses that they had inflicted upon him. He was the villain in their story. As the sorceress went on everyone around him, even the mortals, seemed to be filled with fury. A woman in an expensive looking red dress through her glass of champagne at the wall and the man beside her roared in agreement. “She needs to stop talking.” The mortals, all those people, they were going to make them fight. 

  
Piper and Jason walked over to them. “I can maybe slow her down but-”

  
“You stopped her last time,” assured Jason, “you can do it again.”

  
Piper shook her head and stole at nervous look at her old enemy, she stared right back. “She knows what she’s doing. Those feelings come from deep inside of her she barely has to concentrate to use them. I-”

  
“You’ve got feelings of your own you can use.” The daughter of Athena checked the exits. “The rest won’t be long, they’ve clearly seen what’s happening.”

  
Piper didn’t seem sure but didn’t hesitate to walk directly towards the stage, grabbing a mic of her own from the podium. Medea was taller than her, she wore a smile that said she knew it all and stood like she could never be knocked down, but Piper didn’t need a show. “You think we’ve been unfair?” She asked her, her voice bouncing off the walls. “We didn’t choose to fight you, we didn’t defeat you for fun. We defeated you because you would’ve killed us otherwise. We fight because we have NO choice, because our lived are worth fighting for. You’ve already had a life,” Medea’s smile seemed to waver, “it isn’t our fault that it ended the way it did. Grudges shouldn’t be passed down as heritage.”

  
He couldn’t feel Piper’s words like he’d felt Medea’s and he was about to worry when he realized that the sorceress had forced those thoughts into his head. Thoughts of anger and bitterness were there, but not as strongly as the ones his friend talked about. 

  
“Why are the not attacking?” Jason didn’t take his eyes off his girlfriend for one second. “Don’t think they suddenly decided that we should just talk things through.”

  
“She mentioned the camps,” added Annabeth, “they’re probably waiting for them to fight, break us enough to make us surrender.”

  
“Which means they haven’t already.” Percy’s spirits soared for a second, there was no stopping Coach, Reyna and Nico. 

  
“We don’t care about fairness for you demigods. We were never given justice in our past lives and you failed to convince us that the gods could ever give us that. Your world, your precious lives, are only precious to you. We rot, always running away, while you get called heroes.”

  
Percy had to hold back Jason to stop him from helping Piper out. It killed him to see her stuttering and helpless but he knew it was a battle only she could fight.  
When he thought of the last battle in Athens, and he did it often, he always imagined aching limbs and swords clanging against each other, but there were many types of battles. There were battles that you fought with your voice and your conviction, battles you fought with yourself and your own fears. All those fight could be fought bravely, you could gain glory from any of them. 

  
So he held Jason back and told Annabeth to let Piper handle it. And Piper did.  
“We are heroes, but not because we fight our parent’s war. We’re heroes because we do what’s needed for the people that need it.”

  
Medea’s beautiful face contorted into a hideous scowl, but just before she could say anything……

********

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Leo told the crowd of people. He’d hoped his Greek wasn’t as horrible as he thought it was but the guests didn’t seem to like it, responding by shrieking at him like angry hyenas.“We are experiencing a robbery,” he ignored the shrieks and tried his best 'I’m-trying-to-look-calm-but-I’m-not’ smile, “please head to the fire exists in an organized matter.”

  
He’d hoped that his incredibly realistic cop outfit and his overwhelming charisma would suffice to convince them to do as he said but they all stood their ground with confused angry looks one their faces. He needed them to start leaving so that the rest of the people got the image and left ASAP. He started to panic when he saw their eyes turn glassy; Medea must’ve been working her magic. He was about to light his pants on fire from panic when he saw Piper standing beside her on stage with that witch. He also remembered Hazel, waiting somewhere beneath him. They had magic of their own. 

  
Piper stood with a smirk on her face as Medea looked from her to Leo, outraged. When she finally said something, it was simply effect full: “We all want you dead.”

  
Her words were so strong that his fists immediately set ablaze. Sadly, it had the same effect in the mortals. He barley had time to shut off his flames before a heavy woman who was made heavier by her coat jumped on him and knocked him down.he hit his head painfully against the floor but had a few seconds to marvel how utterly humiliating dying like this would he and got right back up.   
The woman had run off in her death-seeking frenzy but as he looked around Leo found himself in total chaos. A young woman had dug her nails into Annabeth’s hair and they engaged in the weirdest game of tug of war he’d seen. Percy had a guy trying to choke him and Jason was trying get rid of a young boy biting his leg. He tried to ignore it all and get to Medea and the rest of the real enemies but they all vanished before Piper could get Katropis out. He ran up to her -having to jump over a hunched politician in his way there- and said: “Where did she go?”

  
“I don’t know but we’ve got to deal with this before trying to figure that out.”

  
“Can’t you just tell them to beat it?”

  
“It’s to loud,” she shouted over the vicious screams of Greek socialites, “I need them to pay at least some attention. Medea’s enchantment is still over them.”

  
Leo really didn’t get how this whole magic thing worked. He used magic himself, a few godly parts here and there, but this what out of his field of expertise. “We need to find Hazel.” He started scanning the crowd. He couldn’t catch a glimpse of neither Frank or Hazel. Then he spotted a blob if curly hair far in the back. Hazel turned to look at them just in time to get trampled by the probable heirs to the Greek enterprises. 

  
Leo didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t attack the mortals; it want their fault they were being completely annoying. He cursed Gaea and her terribly smart schemes. 

  
He took a deep breath and faced the mob of crazed mortals. “Let’s do this,” he told Piper.

********

A Legion of venti, dozens of drakons, blood-thirsty Cyclops, that’s was Hazel expected when she thought of the last battle in Athens. To say that she was surprised was like saying that Octavian was just slightly irritating. 

  
When she managed to get throughout the hidden tunnel she found. In the Parthenon she met chaos (lower case chaos). Everywhere she looked there were mortals acting like wild animals. She managed to spot Piper and Leo on top of a small stage by the podium; Leo noticed her too but a middle- aged man knocked the wind out of her before she could make her way towards her friends.   
He struggled to get away from him but he had the drive of a vengeful gorilla. He was yelling at her in Greek with a kind of hate that didn’t seem to belong to him. Hazel knew this was probably the works of Medea but the man still managed to scare her. 

  
She tried to stand but he caught her ankle. When she turned to look at him again his lips seemed to move in an unnatural way, speaking with the voice she’d heard the last day of her last life. “Who will you save, daughter of Pluto? You can’t even save yourself! They can’t be saved!” She kicked the man’s nose, probably breaking it, and ran towards the stage. 

  
“Hazel!” She heard Piper call her name and looked around the glass displays. Se had to duck a couple of purses, but she finally found her. “Can you make them calm down?” Piper asked, Leo close behind her. “I just need you to make them listen and I’ll get them out of here.”

  
Hazel could feel the magic that ram sacked the minds of the mortals around them. It was powerful in ways she could barely understand. But Piper spoke with such confidence (no charm speak, her own voice) that she didn’t think twice about giving it a try. “Okay,” she told them. “Cover me.”

  
She didn’t have to concentrate to much to figure put what they were seeing. They were seeing them, the Seven, dead and suffering. They were seeing Hazel slash through a Gryphon but hearing only the creature whimper. She saw Annabeth laughing as Arachne struggled through her bonds and Percy laugh as he finished off one of the Giants. She Jason light some pitiful looking demons on fire with a clap of thunder while Piper mocked them with charm speak and Leo urged the flames to consume them. Frank soared over all of it as a dragon and she swore she could see a smirk on his face as his claws dug into a reptilian like woman. 

  
All of this made who stomach churn with fear because, even though she knew the truth, she also saw her circumstances getting harder. Where they going to end up as killers?

  
“No,” she whispered. But try as she must she couldn’t make the gryphon look evil or the demon women any less pitiful, because she couldn’t see it herself. So she imagined something else: the stables at camp where they kept the unicorns and how she’d stopped them from getting hurt, Skippy the Pegasus flew freely, Ella laughed alongside Percy’s brother as they both sat in a book nest of her making. “We could be so much more,” she didn’t know who she was telling it to, but she believed it. 

  
All around her, the yelling stopped. She felt Piper’s hand squeeze her shoulder but could only close her eyes to keep the tears from coming. “Go home!” Piper didn’t need Greek to make them understand, her words washed over them like a gentle wave that urged them to walk way. 

  
Everyone started filing out of the building calmly and silently. Leo followed them from behind to make sure everyone was out and waited exactly two minutes after the last glassy-eyed mortal left. “Well that was easy.”   
Hazel looked around at her friends: Jason, Percy and Annabeth’s attire had been ruined by the raging mob of mortals, Leo had lost his cop hat and Piper was now barefoot. “Where’s Frank?” For a moment her stomach convulsed with worry, but then she saw a bright green gecko make it’s way towards her and slowly turn into her boyfriend. “Thought it’d be better to stay low, you seemed to have it under controlled.”

  
“Yeah,” Piper huffed. Jason grabbed her hand, trying to look as confident as one could with a missing sleeve. “What now?”

  
The hairs at the back of Hazel’s neck shot up. She turned around just in time to see a familiar brooding face, a face so handsomely cruel she would never forget it.

  
“I was just begging for you to ask that, dear Piper.”

 

 

  
No one moved as the god snaked it’s way into the building, crushing broken glass under his bare feet and not even flinching. Percy stood taller and was the first to draw out his weapon. Hazel wanted to call to him to wait but before she could do anything, the Celestial Bronze sword turned into a delicate comb.   
Percy’s green eyes urged Hercules to make the next move. He did. 

  
With a swift snap of his thumbs, two figures appeared in front of him. Two young women, even though the one to her left seemed much younger but she could barely tell since her face was covered in grime and a gag ran across what she supposed was usually a bright smile. The wind seemed to be knocked out of her when the other woman looked up, she looked just like Percy. The trace at the crinkle of her eyes that told her she was used to smiling, it was also Percy’s.

  
“You son of a-”

  
“Don’t,” Percy’s free hand held Leo back, “they’re not really here.”

  
“You don’t understand! I saw her!”

  
Hazel assumed that Leo was referring to the younger looking one, even though she wasn’t sure how she knew her. The island, it was the only explanation. That was probably why he didn’t want to give them any details. 

  
Percy was right, they seemed to be simply images -some sort of Iris message-type apparitions- Hercules was taunting them. 

  
“What do you want?” Hazel asked. 

  
“You know what we want,” his eyes looked at her through his death sunglasses, “it’s what we’ve so fondly asking for.”

  
“You’re even more stupid than they say if you believe we’d actually give up that easily!” Annabeth’s eyes shone with tears, she swiftly turned to look at the image of Sally Jackson and a storm brewed in her eyes. “You know we’d fight all along, why do this?”

  
The god didn’t answer, he simply turned back towards Leo and the boy holding him back. “Is that a no?”

  
He gave them five seconds and the the images disappeared “Fine.”

  
Hercules retreated and Percy tried to lunge but he was gone before he could catch him. “Coward!” He yelled. 

  
They didn’t have a time to look for him because almost immediately all the monsters that had vanished with Medea came back in a flash. They must’ve been waiting impatiently for their answer and eventually the opportunity to shred them to pieces. But Medea was in longer leading the small army, and the army was no longer small. 

  
“I expected a lot more after last time, Jackson.” The man addressing him was tall enough to be a dwarfed Giant but he had the aspect of a man. His muscular body was covered in blinding armor and his eyes were the color of an bleak sun. Helios. “I see you no longer have your goat friend to use his tree magic on me.”  
The crowd snickered but a growl cut them off. “Save the speeches brother.” The other Titan, who looked just like the first but less bright, rolled up his sleeves.

 “Let’s finish this.”

  
Jason had now let go of Piper hand and had drawn his sword. “What happened to your bare hand son of Jupiter?” The god taunted, but Jason kept his eyes fixed on him. 

  
A vampire lady with flames for hair fixed her eyes on Annabeth, and soon all of them had an enemy in sight backed up by a long list of old foes they thought they’d gotten rid off a long time ago. There was brief moment though, where only them seemed to exist; there were nods and faint grin here and there. A small goodbye. 

  
Then their war began.   
**********

  
Fighting for survival hadn’t really made sense to Percy in the past five years of his life. He knew that he could die any second but there was always that excitement weighing the fear down. Ignorance wasn’t only bliss, it was his anchor. Even during the Titan War there had been the new rush brought in by the curse if Achilles, he didn’t want it admit how unbeatable he felt.   
If there was anything he’d learned was that fighting lead to more fighting and that the cycle of evil could never be fully stopped. There was always going to be a war blocking his path; he was always going to feel the need to end it.   
He wasn’t unbeatable.

  
As Riptide cut through his attackers like she’d done so many times before, as he felt his arms ache and sweat trickle, he could no longer tell which side he was on. The good? The bad? Was there such a thing? Because as much as he wanted to hate them, he couldn’t. He had killed and there was no way to mask that, no amount of heroism could wash the blood off his hands. 

  
But he kept fighting. He fought for Annabeth who’s shoulder brushed past him now and again, for his mother who deserved so fiercely to live, for his camp, for both camps. He didn’t want to think about why Gaea was doing this or what she had planned next. The possibility of the two camps fighting was so huge that it made him sick with worry and guilt. Maybe the should’ve sailed home. 

  
“Percy!” A bloody scythe missed him by an inch but he didn’t have time to recognize the voice who’d pretty much saved his life; his own blade had pierced a drachnae who had probably been wielding the weapon. From the corner of his eye he saw Krios and Jason engaged in battle, the so of Jupiter was so focused on the Titan he couldn’t see the arrow that was being pointed at his head. Percy knew better than to warn him, too late. He ran towards him -dodging blades like a ninja- and threw Riptide unto the arrow’s path. He’d never had a good aim and there were no gods to pray to, so he just sucked in a breath and let to of the handle. 

  
Krios had been aware of the incoming arrow all along and growled when he saw it scrape across a sword. “Useless!” He screamed. Jason caught Percy’s eye for a millisecond and felt his already aching lungs collapse when he realized he’d left him without a weapon. Even if it returned to his pocket, he’d be left defenseless for much too long. 

  
“I’m fine!” He was lost in the blur of battle be fore he could argue. Krios’s sword almost cut the worry out of his head.

 

 

  
C'mon you stupid sword, Annabeth urged as she saw Percy’s fist hit a small telkhine square in the nose. He wasn’t going to make it any longer weapon less. She cursed him for being so careless but knew she’d just saved Jason. She cursed anyways. 

  
Piper’s back pressed against hers. “She’s stalling,” Piper reassured her, Annabeth had the same idea, “but what for?”

  
Annabeth had to yell to be heard over the chaos. “She wants the camps to see us fail. Break they’re spirits.”

  
“That means there’s sprits to break!” She ducked and Annabeth slashed a cyclops in the eye. The ring of it’s wailing echoed in her mind even as she ran to help Hazel. She knew that if the camps saw them beaten they would give up, and even though there were too far away, they were fighting in this war as well. They’d sent the angriest monsters to Athens but left small armies all over home to seize anything that wasn’t protected. They weren’t going to lose time. 

  
Each defeat made Annabeth’s arm heavier and her strikes lower, their fighting was useless. They were playing right into Gaea’s game. She needed to contact the camp. 

  
She risked a glance behind her and saw that Riptide had reappeared in Percy’s hand. A smile manage to form along her cut lips and tired face. She retreated back so she was shoulder to shoulder -just like old times- with Percy. “I need to send an Iris message to the camp.” She didn’t care if anyone overhear, she would never let Gaea stop her from doing this. “I need water!”

  
He nodded and kicked a gryphon in the snout. She was surprised Helios hadn’t attacked Percy directly, she didn’t ponder over it afraid she’d jinx her luck. “I’ll need to pull some from the coast,” he smiled at her cockily like he always had, the only change being the experience in his eyes, “cover me.”

  
She played defense as her boyfriend pulled put his arm in front of him and pulled on an invisible force. There were too many of them, she couldn’t keep them away by herself. She felt an arrow pierce her bicep and stopped only to pull it away. Percy turned. “No!” She scolded. “Don’t stop! We don’t have time!”  
Maybe this was the last thing she did, maybe her end would come by the waves and waves of old enemies, but she wasn’t going to let it be in vain. The Iris message would be sent and her fight would continue to be fought by her family back at Camp and by her allies in the other. 

  
Annabeth saw the first signs of the tide and felt relive through the pain and exhaustion. But it was quickly replaced as Helios finally took his turn in the killing of Percy Jackson. He struck with a blinding burst of light that left his clothes smoking and thrust in his wicked sword almost right away. She held back a sob as Percy barely managed to stop the blow with a quivering arm. She knew she wasn’t going to survive if she didn’t focus on her own wave of enemies, all around her her friends fought battles predestined to kill them. Fighting was what She wanted, but there was no other way. If they stopped, they would die.   
The Iris message, it was their only hope. She yelled in frustration because she knew there wasn’t enough. The prophecy had to be wrong, Seven couldn’t win them a war. 

  
There was a stillness so quick she almost missed it when she heard the arrows. The arrows she’d heard when she was seven and traveling with her young family of broken demigods, the arrows she’d heard the first time she’d met Nico and Bianca Di Angelo.

  
The Hunters. 

  
Her face was streaked with tears when they dispersed into the mass and silently and efficiently started taking the creatures out. “Annabeth I can’t-”

  
She didn’t let Thalia speak even though she wanted to hug her until both their arms fell off. “I need you to cover me long enough to send an Iris message.” She didn’t explain; she didn’t have time. She simply rushed towards the few water she’d seen earlier. There were three drachmas in the small leather bound in her thigh that once held a knife but she didn’t have a way to make a rainbow.   
She heard Helios curse and soon she was bathed with sunlight. The puddle at her feet rose up in a fountain of sea spray, hitting the light just right. She couldn’t see Percy, but he was there. 

  
She offered the coin to Iris’s assistant, hoping her line was still working, and gave the address of Camp Half-Blood. Immediately, the image of Thalia’s hill appeared before her. It was the first she’d seen of what had been her home and it would probably be the last.

  
“I told you!” Rachel’s grinning face took up the image, along with Octavian and behind them: the Athena Parthenos. “Annabeth, you’re alive!”

  
The rest if the campers looked ate her stunned. She wanted to tell them everything that had happened but, as always, there was no time. “Protect the camps,” she told them, “fight as one.”

  
Rachel’s face fell just a bit, she looked confused which was a clear sign that her future was still uncertain. “That’s all you have to say!” How she disliked Octavian. “We’re going to need more detail than that-”

  
“You’ve been brought the amends to the feud between the camps and now you have no reason to not fight together.” He was about to interrupt her but Annabeth wasn’t going to gel that happen. “Now, I’d like to talk to the actual leader of your camp so…”

  
“Reyna.”

  
“I should’ve stayed behind.” The fight probably didn’t look any better via Iris message. “What can we do here?”

  
“They’ll try to take down Olympus but will attack over there was well. They’ll seize anything and anyone that can prevent them from rising. 

  
You can be positive that they’ll never take down Olympus, but we won’t be over there to help you with the rest of them.” She felt like she was giving her last orders. This felt like goodbye so much it made the Praetor of Rome shed tears.   
“We’ll protect your homes together so that they’re ready for you when you come back.”

  
There was another flash of light, her time was up. “Annabeth,” it was Chiron addressing her, he looked so old, “the prophecy chose you for a reason that’s beyond anyone’s, even Gaea’s power, don’t forget that.”  
She nodded and looked at the campers, both Roman and Greek, stand together. Then her hand passed through the image and it was gone. They were alone in Athens.

*******

Thalia honestly thought they weren’t going to make it. She hated it, but she had to admit that Gaea’s strategy had been excellent; they would never hurt the mortals. Sadly, this had slowed them down too much. Piper and the Roman girl Jason had spoken of, Hazel, could barely be seen. Leo was once again locked in battle with Khione and her brother and Percy were fighting Helios and Krios. This wasn’t her definition of great. 

  
She played defense until she finally saw Annabeth dash into the hall they’d taken. She was so used to taking care of her after all that time on the run, but that had been ten years ago and she’d grown into one of the fiercest fighters she’d ever seen. Luke was so proud of you, kid. You beat both of our expectations. 

  
Thalia knew how prophecies ended and she would never forgive herself for backing away from hers. Whatever happened today, she was saving Annabeth and guaranteeing her a future with Percy, they seemed like the only ones fit enough to take care of Jason. Not like he needed much help either, he was standing incredibly against the Titan who seemed to double his strength with the hatred he had towards him for sending him to Tartarus. 

  
Her mind reeled between sneaking glances at Annabeth. Dodge. Check on Jason. Stab. Where’s Percy. Kick. There he is. Nice lunge, Piper. Fighting was easy, she’d never really fit in anywhere but the battlefield. Which is why she feared what Gaea really had in store for them. All the enemies she’d rallied here couldn’t possibly know either, they were getting what they wanted. Gaea must want them off her back, but why?

  
She lost her pace when she heard Phoebe cry out in pain and felt the wind get knocked out of her. I need to get to her. She couldn’t breathe, she needed air. She felt around with her mind and sucked in a light breeze. Her lungs where hit with a burst of relief but she didn’t have time to congratulate herself, she had to find Phoebe. 

  
Her heart felt sick with worry when another cry reached her ears. It was Jason.  
He seemed to have been handling the Titan before but now he was pinned to the ground, the tip of his sword deadly close to his chest. He struggled to get up but he seemed to be stronger than him, too strong. Thalia inspected his face and felt anger bubble when he saw the Eidolons in the Titan’s eyes. That fight was never fair. 

  
She wasn’t the only one aware of Jason, Piper kept looking back towards him, missing the talons of what appeared to be a woman in a leather jacket. Thalia almost fainted when she turned around and saw her mother staring straight at her. She thought back to two years ago, to the Underworld. She wasn’t loyal to Hades before, of course she’d side with her. But as she examined her closer she saw something different in her. Her mother didn’t appear to be a ghost, there was only that anger claiming she had ruined her life in her strangely inhumane eyes. Like she wanted revenge for what Thalia’d done. 

  
Nemesis.

  
Piper needed all her concentration to face a minor goddess like her. She seemed indecisive, going back and ford between fending off Nemesis with her dagger and turning towards Jason. Thalia had wielded a shock of lightning unto Krios’s back, but neither him or the Eidolons were faced. 

  
“Percy!” Piper’s voice held shaky command, but she didn’t need magic to get his attention. “Call in a tide!” The daughter of Aphrodite then looked at Thalia and asked for a favor. Save Jason. Her eyes seemed to be only one color, dark. I can’t, you have to do your best. 

  
Her hands trembled and Percy risked a moment of concentration and filled the Parthenon with a gentle tide. Thalia felt the water tickle the soles of her feet. She ordered her hunters to cover her and with a deep sigh released a surge of lightning across the water. It was like gripping a slippery rubber band getting to all the monsters around her but making sure none of the Seven or the Hunters got hit. She searched for the Eidolons, her electricity smelling for their scent like a hound. And once she found them, the waves electrified. 

    
There was a shrill scream and a flash of Jason’s golden sword, then everything turned to darkness for Thalia Grace as she felt herself fade.

*********  
He’d felt the sparks lick the surface of his skin and for a full second, his heart stopped beating. He held on tight to the small tide he’d brought in, he could feel them all. But those sparks never did any damage and he could barely believe his eyes once he worked up the courage to open them. 

  
Somehow Thalia had done it. Now, only the seven stood. All the hunters where crouched besides their lieutenant who laid motionless on the ground. He could see Jason start towards her from the corner of his eye but he only saw one thing: Krios and his strangely golden eyes. “Jason.” With no army to fight, the room had gone eerily quiet. “Jason, don’t touch her.”

  
His friend started to say something, puzzled by Percy’s command, but he could only see past him. Behind him lurked a figure, he’d waited patiently. They we’re only toying around, getting rid of all the promises Gaea had to make in order to build herself and army. When would he stop being the pawn? How?

  
“You know,” started Hercules, his every step resonating with condescendence, “I admit, you were impressive. I’ll hand that to you. I’m impressed.”

  
Percy didn’t have to look to know that Annabeth’s grip in her sword had tightened. “We’re just delighted. It’s one of our life goals, really.”

  
“It’s a good thing you got to fulfill some before dying, isn’t it?” Annabeth charged. “Oh none of that princess,” they all watched as Thalia rose along with his open palm. She stood up like a rag doll being pulled up by some strings. “you wouldn’t want your friend here doing something stupid because of you.” 

  
“What are you doing to her?” Jason’s voice was almost a growl.

  
“To storm or fire the world must fall,” he chuckled making his handsome features look unattractive, “you’ve really got to start paying attention to prophecies, little brother. Our sis here is going to help us.”

  
“Do what?”

  
“It takes something sacred like, say, the blood of a couple of demigods to wake Gaea. But to wake Olympus…you need something pretty powerful.” His palm went up once again but this time Thalia didn’t move. It was Leo who convulsed besides Percy and when he finally composed himself, his eyes were a fierce gold. “Or someone.”

  
Percy couldn’t move, nobody did. It felt like they all shared the same breath. The only thing he could hear was Rachel’s voice reciting that prophecy for the first time. He could only see his trashed apartment. He could only imagine what Paul will feel like. 

  
“Leo, this is not you,” Piper’s voice shook with desperation but still held charm, “they’re making you do this..whatever it is-”

  
“Don’t waste your breath, beautiful. This Eidolons aren’t bound to their minds, they’re bound to their souls, only death will get rid of them.” 

  
Percy could feel his stare through those sunglasses saying: 'silly mortals’. Somehow he didn’t feel scared. Maybe he’d surpassed his terror limit, maybe he knew it was all over but he started to think. Not the way Annabeth did, with all those kinks in her head turning. He thought the way he did when he made split-second decisions. Black and white, yes or no, those weren’t answers he’d ever relied on. Victory or defeat, what did all of that even mean?

  
“So what are you planning to do, Heracles?” Stalling, it never failed him. He didn’t know why he used the Greek name, it just tumbled out. “You going to destroy the world along Gaea, then what?”

  
“Don’t waste your time on mind tricks Jackson, you don’t have that much to lose anyways.”

  
“No, I don’t. Unlike you who has all the time in the world,” he really did hate him, “right?”

  
He scowled at Percy and deviated his palm to the side, just as he did Thalia’s body convulsed backwards. There were shouts of protest from the hunters and Annabeth. Jason stood frigid and afraid. Heracles bent his fingers one by one making her twist in weird angles, piercing arrows from the hunters followed. “Oh please.” He scoffed, letting them fly and being completely undamaged by them.   
Percy’s focus went directly towards the ground. Of course, he was on Gaea’s side. He had a minor flashback to The Labyrinth when he fought one of his least favorite brothers. Sadly, he didn’t see any chains close by. He had to throw him off enough to cause a distraction, he didn’t know what he was distracting him from exactly or what he was going to do next but his mind was in battle mode; somewhere inside his jumbled up thoughts he’d already formed a plan. At least that’s what he hoped. 

  
“There’s a balance to follow, cousin. Don’t mess with it. There’s seven of us for a reason.” He could only pray Annabeth got the message. “What are you going to do with two or three?” It was all confusing to Heracles who still thought he was trying to play 'mind games’ on him. But Percy was directing his words to someone else and she seemed to be catching on. 

  
The god stared at him confused. Percy tapped his sword once against the sunken down floor, twice, three times. 

  
Then Annabeth lunged.

 

 

  
Percy took his chance and ordered the hunters to leave. Some of his stalling nonsense was true, they had been chosen for a reason and -even thought he didn’t dare question the strength if the hunters- he knew that only they could end this. But getting them away from Thalia was no easy task. 

  
“If you think we’re leaving her behind you’re insane, Percy!” Phoebe was bleeding pretty badly, he usual healthy glow was gone. 

  
“You can’t help her,” he pleaded, “fighting won’t help.”

  
“Then we’ll find another way!”

  
The ground beneath them shook, the giants were here. Percy hated what he was about to do;he hated sending to a battle they knew they couldn’t win, but the hunters weren’t going to sit around and do nothing it went against their very nature. It went against their oath. 

  
The message was clear. They both had jobs to do, Percy needed to go with the rest of the Seven. “Wait!” Phoebe didn’t stand a chance like that. 

  
Percy prayed to Artemis. He’d never done it, never prayed to just her without her brother. He didn’t even send a message, he just reached out for her the way he did to a tide. He found himself wrapping a small line of water around Phoebe’s leg and made it crawl until it lingered on her wound. 

  
For a second the hunter looked more like a small girl with brown hair and eyes that told him she was no girl, then he ordered the line of water to heal her. And it did. 

  
_Thank you, you brave man._

  
Artemis’s maidens sprinted away like gazelles armed with bow and arrow.   
Percy didn’t miss a beat. He knew that Annabeth more than anyone could take on a god but this certain god had been a demigod for a long time, and he soon came to find he fought like one too. He could only stare as they locked weapons, sword and bat clashing. The ground beneath him clawed at him like rising souls, it was the Titan War all over again. He was rendered useless as Annabeth fought. But this wasn’t Luke, she would never get through to him. 

  
“Percy!” It was Frank calling his name, he stopped straining against Gaea’s power unlike the rest and looked pale but strangely calm. “We need to get Leo and Thalia back.”

  
“But he said the Eidolons were bound to their spirits. How-” Frank pulled a small stump of wood from his pocket. “No-”

  
“I’m not asking, Percy. Either way I’ll do it, so help me.”

  
He looked at Hazel who inspected them closely between nervous glances and attempts to free herself from the ground. Annabeth’s arm shook violently and she pulled away, she fought like she still had a knife instead of a sword. He turned back to Frank, his friend who seemed to have aged a life-time in the last couple of weeks. “Okay.”

  
His fist closed around the small piece of wood. “We need to figure out how to move towards them.” Thalia and Leo stood perfectly still as Heracles fought Annabeth, both pairs of eyes golden and glassy. They were only a few feet away. 

  
“I’ve got an idea.” Percy wasn’t really sure about this. Last time he tried it hadn’t gone well. “It won’t last long, I’ll need Hazel to finish the job.”

  
“What do you mean?”

  
“You’ll see.” He felt the familiar tug in his gut. “Once it starts dive towards them.”  
Frank nodded and called Hazel’s name. He explained as best as he could through nods and a few hand signals. Percy motioned for Jason and Piper to get back once it started. He couldn’t do anything to tell Annabeth, he just hoped he had enough control of it to not hurt her. 

  
Here goes nothing. It started with a small quiver, he barely felt it beneath his feet. He didn’t want to explode like last time, he couldn’t control it with desperation. He would release it gently. Soon the quiver turned into a rumble and that rumble traveled like a small crack. He pressed harder and harder until his gut ached, but it didn’t feel like he was wearing himself out, it felt like exercise. Like a muscle he just hadn’t used in a while. Everything was shaking beneath him. “Now!” Hazel had gotten here through tunnels and he knew she could just as easily bring them down, they just needed a little push.   
When the floor collapsed Frank turned into a stag. The moment his hooves hit the ground besides Leo and Thalia he turned back into his human self and took out the piece of wood, it immediately caught fire. 

  
“Frank no!” Hazel’s cry brought the collapse to a stand still. Jason and Piper where pressed against a far column, the only one that seemed to stand. Frank stood in a small patch of rubble that seemed to hold. That only left Percy and Hazel on the side of the old building that hadn’t suffered much damage. “Percy how could you let him do this?!”

  
He didn’t know.

  
“He’ll die!”

  
He’s mind tripped with words when he found muscled looking up and noticing that between all the rubble Hazel had helped him create a huge crevice. And just waiting to fall was Annabeth. Heracles’s bat rested beneath his girlfriends chin and there was nothing he could do. He searched his mind for possibilities but he was out of maybes and what ifs. He was too far away; she was going to fall.   
His heart stung a sting so bad he thought he was dying. She slipped and he watched as the edge chipped the sole of her feet and how she dropped into the abyss, her once-beautiful dress waved at him. It all happened so fast he seemed to be the only one to notice. 

  
“FRANK!!” There was no fire, but all the gold has vanished from his friend’s eyes. Friend. 

  
“Where’s Tha-”

  
A powerful blast of wind threw him of his feet. For a second he seemed to black out because suddenly Annabeth was sprawled against the rubble and Jason’s lighting left a permanent zing in the air. 

  
He didn’t need to know what happened, he just needed to know who’d risked it all to make it happen. He lost sight of everything around him and focused the sudden wave of pain on a single pair of dark sunglasses. His range travelled from the pit of his stomach to the every edge of his lips as he let out a roar. Forget a quiver, he’d unleash a full on quake. 

  
The crevice collapsed along with Heracles and he watched as he too disappeared. But he knew he wasn’t gone, he felt him just as quick as he’d gone. “Is that all you’ve got, cus?”

  
He laughed. He remembered being scared of how he sometimes laughed while fighting, but now he made it even louder, because he wanted to scare. He wanted to terrify, he wanted him to suffer. 

  
The god struck but Percy forced the ground beneath to throw him off balance making him miss and giving him a wide arc to strike. So he did. Over and over again, until that stupid smirk no longer rested upon his face and his shades fell off to reveal fear. His bat finally clattered to the floor and he hit him Greek-style, with the butt of his sword. But if there was something the Romans taught him, was to finish it off. 

  
“You can’t kill a god.” He seemed to be assuring himself more than Percy.  
“After all you’ve done, you think you deserve death.” He thrust his sword in his face so that he was barely scratching his chin with the blade. “I’m not going to kill you Heracles, but there won’t be a day you won’t remember me and all those you made suffer.”

  
He promised himself he would never tap into such a dark part of himself ever again. Not after seeing how scared Annabeth was, scared of him. It was hard to remember that promise when all he saw was her falling with no possible chance of him getting to her, when all he saw was Thalia and Zoë and his mother. So he grasped that rage and he felt it flow from his veins to the gods. It wasn’t like controlling poison, Ichor was much heavier and so ancient it might’ve forgotten it -like most everything else- contained water, but Percy found it. Beads of sweat tumbled down from his hair as he grasped what little was left of that water and sucked out. He wasn’t going to give him the simple pleasure of containing some humanity. He would live forever, suffering. 

  
“Percy!” 

  
“Percy they’re here!”

  
He turned has attention from the slumped god beneath him to the entrance. The hunters had held them off as long as they could, but it wasn’t long enough. One by one the giants entered. 

  
Piper cried to the sky. “Help us!” Her words rang with such power than Percy immediately sprinted towards her. Jason kneeled besides her, staring at the darkness that had swallowed his sister. Percy couldn’t wrap his head around the idea of Thalia being gone. Not her, she’d been the strongest one, the immortal one. She was suppose to out-live him. 

  
“We can’t call to them for help.”

  
“What?” Jason looked up confused. “That’s the only way to defeat a giant, Percy.”

  
“To storm or fire the world must fall. Someone already gave into fire,” he couldn’t possibly look towards Frank, “we just need a storm.”

  
Right on cue a blue-skinned giant burst in. A few hunters followed his wake along with the rest of their siblings but the giants simply swatted them off. Their eyes reeked of hunger and vengeance fueled by theirs mother’s wish that could be felt in the shift of the earth beneath. That had nothing to do with Percy.   
He knew that the answer wasn’t a fight to the death. Death wasn’t an option when it came to immortals, but they still had to fight and no gods were around to help them. 

  
“Go ahead,” it was Piper reassuring them, “we’ll fight and give you enough time.”

  
“Piper-”

  
“No,” she took Jason’s hand, “it’s what we’re meant to do.”

  
Fate. They’d been trying to fight it. Percy was so sick of being a pawn, of being told that everything he did was already planned but he’d confused it all. He had a choice and no one but himself had chosen a long time ago. It’s what they were meant to do. 

  
He heard Annabeth slowly get up, Leo checking if she was okay. He could still see her falling, still hear her slam against the wall. But she was fine. It didn’t make sense, she didn’t even seem to have broken bone. Then he saw it, as small veil of silver light that seemed to encase her. For a terrifying second he thought that she’d finally become a huntress, but the usual healthy glow that surrounded them was different from this. He’d seen it before, a blessing. The blessing of Athena. 

  
The gods were there after all. One by one he saw his friends be shielded with the light of their godly parent. Orange, gold, pink, blue and his father’s sea green. He stared intently at Frank waiting for Mars’s red, but it never came. There’s still time, he told himself. He couldn’t pass him for dead; he’d seen what he could do. He couldn’t be. 

    
He felt like he had Achilles’s curse again. Physically the only thing that had changed was the new aura that surrounded him, but he felt that invincibility once again. Like his skin was armor. He turned towards Jason who had gotten up. He’d never seen anything but kindness and leadership in him but now he saw fierce vengeance in the curl of the scar on his upper lip. It scared him but he felt it too and he was done with control. 

  
Alcyoneus, the giant he thought they’d finished off in Alaska, strode in after Polybotes glaring at all of them with humor. “You’ll pay for this.” It was Hazel. She’d finally left Frank’s side and was directing her blade towards her old enemy. Percy was more than happy letting her finish the giant off, he knew that she could do it. Annabeth set her course for the shortest of the giants who was flanked by the twins they recently met in Rome, Leo was right after her hand ablaze. 

  
As for him and Jason, they strode towards their father’s enemies: Porphyrion and Polybotes. 

  
“At last,” said Porphyrion, “I see your father has finally considered me worthy of a fight.” 

  
Percy leaned in his sword. “Don’t kid yourself,” he sounded smug even to his own ears, “the ancient rules deny a god to fight.”

  
“Especially pathetic scum as yourself.” Polybotes’s nose flared giving them an ugly vision of the bats in his cave. “But that’s why we’re here.”

  
Porphyrion had had enough and didn’t even let Jason finish before he stroke. Percy was the one who caught it though, throwing his weight on the giant fist that threatened to kill Jason. The veil of strength that his father gave him made it easy to throw him off. The white-eyed giant staggered in disbelief and lack of balance. Jason sneered as Polybotes threw his giant trident and he easily deflected it with a strong gust of wind. All around them their friends were having the same reaction. They were stronger than they ever were. Hazel reached for all the metal in Alcyoneus’s hair and thrust down making his head bang against the marble of the building. Annabeth circled the three giants, taunting them while Leo set on fire any of them that came near him.

  
For once they fought a fair fight. But ironically enough they were not meant to fight them, that wasn’t their main fight at least. That one grew relentless beneath their feet, outraged at the weakness of her sons. She was meant to wake, she needed to.

  
What they were doing now was doing just that. The Earth goddess was waking.   
The Seven continued toying with the giants. It might’ve seemed so ridiculous to them a couple weeks ago that they’d be the ones messing with the giants. Maybe because they were so scared back then, now they had nothing to lose no everything to fight for. 

  
Percy realized that there’s nothing he’d ever been actually good at in his life but fighting. He thrived with a sword at his fingertips and if he was going to die today he would die with the last surge of satisfaction that beating the creatures that had brought him so much heartbreak. 

  
At one point he found himself back at the crevice where Heracles still laid defeated. He almost jumped when the god’ scold hand wrapped around his ankle. “The girl,” he croaked, “her and your mother.” His heart twisted in his chest at the sound of his mother. He knew where she was, he was trying to tell him. 

  
Ahead of him Jason stood his ground against the giants and the earth gave out small tremors in response. Percy bent down and picked Heracles up by the cuffs of his ridiculous toga. “Where are they?” He growled into his face. He’d lost his shades and now his blue eyes where at full view, nothing to hide. They seemed defeated and to Percy’s shock, human. Heracles had always hated being immortal because it meant he had to live forever with the implications of his actions (even if most were Hera’s fault) so he guessed that he’d chosen the one form that brought him peace. His human form. 

  
A tickle of sympathy fluttered inside Percy, but it was so small he shrugged it off instantly. He’d killed so many without flinching. He was not human and even when he was he’d been the most despicable of them all. “Where are they!?”   
“The island,” he choked, “I never forced the girl out of the island I just locked her and your mother inside one of it’s caves.”

  
“Are they still there? Can we save them?”

  
“I don’t know.” Percy tightened his grasp on him making him flinch. “She might’ve made the cave collapse. It doesn’t help that you’re pissing her off even more now.”

  
The god fell to the floor as Percy’s hands went numb. Had he already killed his mother -Calypso- by executing his plan? Was it too late? Even if it wasn’t, how would he get to the island? 

  
Leo.

  
Without thinking Percy ran towards his friend. He found him easily; he was helping Annabeth by setting the giant’s hair in fire. “Oh I’m sorry,” he sarcastically apologized, “did I ruin your perm?” Percy stepped in and slashed a reasonably big slash across the giant’s thigh, giving Leo time to back off for a minute. Annabeth barely noticed still busy with Enceladus and the other twin to give him a warm welcome. 

  
“Leo,” he grabbed his shoulder taking his mind off the fight for at least a second, “I need you to do something.”

  
“Sure, man!” He didn’t get how serious Percy was being at first. It seemed that the sudden advantage had given them a rush of happiness and confidence. It was strange that such things could exist inside the somber outline that was most likely their final battle. 

  
Then Leo saw how dark his friend’s eyes were. Was that a tear? “What happened?” He scanned the room looking for his friends. Where they okay? Frank still lay in the floor making a dagger of worry pierce his stomach, but so,e of the color seemed to had returned to his face. The rest were fine, putting up the best battle Leo had ever lived to see. “What is it, Percy.”

  
“You can save them.”

  
“Who? What are you talking about?”

  
“My mom,” he looks down, “Calypso.”

  
A wall of emotions exploded in his chest. He’d resigned to keeping his promise. They were going to die; he wasn’t going to be able to save her. “How?”

  
“You need to go back to her island.”

  
“But no one can-”

  
“You can.” A sad smile passed his face. “You promised you would.”

  
Leo understood, he could save her. “What about you guys?”

  
Percy shrugged. “An oath to keep with a finally breath. Right?”

  
“No.” No, it was supposed to be him. His final breath. This meant he was going to get it live and leave them to die. “I can’t-”

  
“You can’t let them die either. Look,” his hand came down on his shoulder once again and his eyes darted towards the giant. Hazel had retreated and was helping Annabeth, it only took one look for her boyfriend for her to know he needed to do this. “My mom is there too and I owe Calypso my life anyways.”  
“Percy.” He wanted to say no and keep fighting but he was right. He couldn’t let them die. It was an impossible decision. One he didn’t want to have to take, but it was too late. Somehow Percy had moved the tide again because the floor was quickly covered by a few inched of water. To his right he saw how the spot where the beach met the ocean had disappeared and how in it’s place, waiting for him, was the raft. 

  
“Tell my mom that I’m sorry….for everything and that I lover her.” Leo started to argue but Percy didn’t let him. “And tell Calypso that I’m sorry too and that,” a smile -a genuine Percy Jackson smile- passed along his face, “she couldn’t have asked for a better person to get her out of that island.”

  
Leo looked around with the tightest iron fist clutching to his heart. For a moment all of his friends stopped to look at him, even Frank managed to flutter his heavy eyelids open, it wasn’t close to the goodbye he wanted. He didn’t want a goodbye at all, but there was an order of things and responsibilities and, even thought he might never forgive himself, it was the right thing. 

  
It was ironic how things turned out. When Leo first met Percy he’d expected this tall, tough hero. He’d scared his socks off most of the time even though he didn’t have all of the tall and tough he thought he would. That first night in Rome and just a few minutes (had it been hours) ago with Hercules, terrifying. But now he just saw his friend and the hero he’d proven to be and he didn’t feel fear, only respect and love. All of them had earned it. 

  
“This is the hardest thing I’ll ever do.” 

  
Percy clapped him in the back and said: “You’ve got time to do harder, Valdez.”

 

 

  
Leo wanted to say that he stood with his head held high as he let the raft take him to Ogygia and away from his friend, but he didn’t do that. Instead he hunched and cried because he was going to live and they most likely weren’t. He cried until he felt the raft hit the smooth sand of the familiar beach and then he stopped, he’d run out of tears. 

  
He soon realized that Percy hadn’t told him exactly were they were and he assumed they weren’t calmly having a cup of tea in Calypso’s dining room.   
He was right. They were no where to be found and as he looked further into the island a small wave of panic toppled him. What if they weren’t here? That’s when he heard the familiar chatter of two of his favorite Boreads. He’d started to wonder where they were when he was fighting Khione. 

  
“Never,” that was definitely Zethes, “have I even more disrespected! Do you not understand what we are, Cal?” Leo knew he didn’t. “We’re immortal babysitters!! And to who? A mortal, a mortal!” 

  
“But the goddess-”

  
As he crept closer Leo saw Zethes flailing his arms dramatically. Neither if them were paying much attention, their swords had never looked more useless. He started to wonder why Calypso hadn’t made any moves, she could’ve easily beat. Especially with Zethes’s appreciation for a pretty face. 

  
Had they done something to her? His stomach twisted in angry knots. He was about to charge -he’d fought their sister, after all- when he saw a frying pan stick out from the cave entrance they were guarding. Sadly, so did Cal. 

    
The toothless Boread yanked the pan right out of the air just second from it hitting Zethes right on top of his 1970’s hairdo. With it came a women who fell to her knees but not before Calypso finally appeared with a pan of her own. Zethes had finally recovered from the shock and was about to do the same thing his brother had done. That’s when Leo charged. “Get away from her!” He took out his hammer and nailed him square in the back, but that in,y made him furious.   
“You!” With his thick French accent it didn’t sound as intimidating as he hoped it would. “How dare you be alive?!” Zethes finally reached for his sword but not before Leo engulfed his hammer in flames placing some fear in his icy stare. Behind him Calypso and call seemed to wrestling over the pan. Leo was pleased to hear an un-Cal-like shriek and then a deep thump. That distracted his brother enough for Leo to have another swing at him and then both brothers where down. 

  
He could feel his shallow breath racking his chest but, more than that, he was aware of Calypso. She was so close. 

  
“Leo-”

  
“We need to get out of here.” His could he possibly bring himself to say anything to her? What would she think of him after leaving his friends behind? And Percy…. “There’s more where they came from.”

  
“Umm, excuse me but,” it was Percy’s mother, “who are you?”

  
Leo couldn’t bear to look at her. Thankfully Calypso stepped in for him. “He’s Leo Valdez. We can trust him. Mrs. Blofis.”

  
Without looking back at the two women behind him he started for the raft, praying it was still there. No on spoke as they raced towards the beach. In an attempt to free his mind of recent events, Leo turned him attention to the way they’d handled the Boreads. In a different occasion he might have had a hard time containing his laughter. Who knew a frying pan would be their demise?   
“It’s still here?” He hadn’t noticed they’d arrived at the beach. “How?”  
“We don’t have much time to question it, just get in. Quickly.”

  
She turned with a sharp look on her face at the sound of him giving him orders. Despite it all, the sight if her still made his heart run out of breath. We was grimly aware of Percy’s mother -Mrs. Blofis?- giving them a look while trying to hide a smile. She implied it in the matter that only another could and his heart seemed to ache even harder. 

  
Leo followed Calypso into the raft closely followed until the three of them were somehow comfortably seated in the small raft. He heard Calypso gasp as it started to drift away. “How?”

  
“Well I promised, didn’t I?” He still remembered the cold dread that had swept over him as he made that promise. He’d feared for his life, he remembered the prophecy. 

  
She reached for his hand making him turn immediately even though he didn’t want to. “What happened? I saw only bits and pieces…” 

  
What was he going to tell her? 

  
“My son,” Leo turned to face a familiar look of sympathy, “do you know anything about him?” His expression told her too much. “Is he?” He had to be. “Alive?”   
“Yes.” She sucked in a breath. “But he told me to tell you be was sorry and that he loved you.” Once again they held their gaze and understanding dawn on her much too hard. “I-” a hand came to rest gently in his shoulder. He could only remember Piper doing that, and very faintly his own mother. 

  
“Percy had a way of surprising us,” she told him, “don’t give up on him just yet.”   
He knew she was right but last time they spoke seemed so much like a good-bye that he somehow knew he was put of surprises. “He told me to tell you the same thing too.” It was obvious he was addressing Calypso. Nervously he cleared his throat. “I mean the part where he says he’s sorry.” He wasn’t going to tell her about that last bit hid managed to tell him. 

  
Calypso looked at her hands. He’d always liked how they seemed so strong; they seemed to reflect what her delicate beauty sometimes couldn’t. “Oh, Percy.” Was all she said.

 

 

  
Annabeth had little time to ponder on the conversation that Percy had had with Leo, she had even less time to register the raft that took him away, but she didn’t need to think about it. Somehow she knew. She’d never been a sucker for happy endings, but this was the closest she’d been to being in the presence of one and it brought a giddy joy to her heart. 

  
Percy’s back stood against her like it had so many times since they were twelve. She could t help but notice how his spine now reached higher than hers and how it stood perfectly straight. 

  
Enceladus lunged at her and she ducked, Percy bending back helping her dodge the blade. They fell into a pattern much to familiar. He ran back and ford between Jason and Annabeth. She was barely paying attention to the giants. The tremors beneath grew fiercer with each blow. The plan was working. There was a loud cry that sounded anything but human and she turned just in time to see Porphyrion land painfully hard on his back. It had been Jason that had thrown him off with a powerful blast of air. Percy was close to follow sliding through the ground just in time to slide Riptide inside the giant’s neck. He went limp when a sudden blast of lightning cut through the room and landed in the middle of his chest, finishing him off. 

  
There was a silence that followed and Annabeth soon realized the rest of the giants had become perfectly still. Not missing a beat, she through her bone sword aiming at Enceladus’s own chest. He too crumpled to the ground. The twin giants had been seized by Piper and her dagger. Her words were the sharpest of all. Annabeth was quick to recover her sword and help her finish them off. 

  
Behind them Jason, Hazel and Percy were taking care of Polybotes and Alcyoneus. The floor had become so stable that Piper and Annabeth couldn’t get to them without falling. Jason was keeping Alcyoneus busy while Percy and Hazel finished off Poseidon’s opposite, but Alcyoneus wasn’t as cooperative as they’d hoped. Jason still glowed with his father’s blessing but he’d been fighting non stop and had gotten rid of the biggest of all the giants, he was tired. He took advantage of this and managed to side step Jason paying him a blow that knocked him off his feet. 

  
“Jason!” 

  
Annabeth only saw the giant’s plan. She couldn’t reach her. “Hazel!” She looked around helplessly for anything that could help her friend. She couldn’t hear her and they couldn’t reach her. Alcyoneus reeked of vengeance and all they could so was watch. She turned away enough to see Frank’s body beside the ruble.   
It happened so fast it took her breath away. Frank slowly turned his head towards his girlfriend who was too busy with Polybotes to notice. Fire shone inside him and seemed to strengthen him enough to get to his feet. He called out for her but it wasn’t her name that flew from his lips, it was the loudest roar Annabeth had ever heard. A dragon’s roar. 

  
It started from his head until it traveled the long way to it’s toes. Millions of scales, copper ones that might as well been armor, turned under his skin covering him until it was almost blinding to look at him. His arm spread out until they grew into the most deadly pair of wings. Where his mouth had been now stood a smoking snout and the shape fangs seemed to follow. The talons in his hand matching. A dragon, Annabeth and never seen one. He took off towards Alcyoneus. The giant noticed him too late. A column of fire had consumed him before he could sputter his last words. 

  
No giant remained standing. 

  
Annabeth didn’t know if it had been the defeat of her sons or Frank’s roar but it seemed like the Earth Mother had finally awoken. The ground no longer shook. Without thinking all Seven, no six, of them gathered. Their shoulders touched each other as they stared ahead at the on true enemy. She rose slowly, the dust and rubble seemed to be sucked into the on space in the middle of the room until they formed the sluggish form of a woman. She wore the same dreamy smile but her eyes no longer remained closed. When she blinked them opened, Annabeth gasped. They were the fresh color of damp soil, flecks of green stood our vividly making it obvious that she was not human. 

  
She felt Percy’s hand take hers. She expected urgency but his touch was soft and comforting. Gaea seemed to stunned by her consciousness. She’d slumbered for so long that she didn’t pay attention to them right away, her anger forgotten for just a moment. 

  
Percy seized the moment. 

  
“Hey, Wise Girl.” He didn’t mean it to sound as if he needed her attention. He knew he had it. He simply said it as if he were greeting her at the sing-along after normal day at Camp.  _Hey, Wise Girl._

  
She interlocked their fingers and smiled up at him unable to stop a tear from falling down. “Hey, Seaweed Brain.” 

  
“I love you.”

  
“I love you too.”

  
Somehow his eyes were perfectly dry which he was glad for. For that moment she could tell herself they were alone after sneaking around and managing to sneak into his cabin while everyone trained. He was just Percy. She was just Annabeth.

  
And they were saying good-bye. 

  
“The greatest of your kind.” The moment was gone, they held Her attention. “I am honored.”

  
No one said anything. She craned her neck slightly and saw Frank -now back to his human form- and Hazel, to the left were Piper and Jason. She almost strained further for Leo, but he was not here. He was safe. 

  
Gaea did what Annabeth though counted as her version of pacing. Her gown seemed to swallow her feet as the clumps of dirt that created it shifted all around her, swallowing her arms also but not her hands. With palms out reached she moved closer to them, her eyes seemed to carry the falsest sympathy. It disgusted Annabeth to see that somehow she wanted to act like their mother too. 

  
Her piercing eyes scanned them all. She was looking. “Where is Leonardo?” A roll of satisfaction encased Annabeth. “Surely the couldn’t have killed him if all of you stand.”

  
“Oh, they didn’t.” She let go of Percy’s hand, a twinge of longing piercing at her stomach. For some reason the goddess had decided on an average human height. Annabeth stood taller than her by a few inches. “You under estimated us. I figured all those millennia asleep would’ve at least taught you something.”  
“You always had a mouth on you.” Gaea cupped Annabeth’s chin with her thumb and index finger. She was faintly reminded of a mother telling her child she’d done something wrong. “I hoped that your step-mother’s disbelief would’ve taught you something.” She tilted her head and let go of her chin. “I guess I was wrong.” 

  
Annabeth forced her nails to dig into her palm to keep herself from sticking the goddess. It couldn’t have been her all those years ago. All demigods attracted monsters and all children of Athena spiders. It wasn’t her. 

  
“Do you truly believe that, Annabeth? Was the fate of Leo’s mother not proof enough for you?” Suddenly the goddess seemed to tower over her. “I’ve been with you since the day you were born. I’ve watched your every step until it finally led you to me.” Gaea stared ahead, past Annabeth. “My little pawns.”

  
“I’m nobody’s pawn.” 

  
The fleck of green in her eyes seemed to glow with a brief hatred. “You.” She composed herself and let another lazy smile adorn her pale lips. “You sure put up a fight, Perseus. Never have been one to abide by the rules. Like father like son.”

  
“Not that you’re the startling reflection of your father. No, I’ll leave that misfortune to Triton. I’m pleased to see that we both share a dislike for him. Most gods actually.”

  
“Stop it!” Annabeth saw exactly what Gaea was trying to do and immediately drew the attention back to her. 

  
“Don’t you trust him? After all this time, you still believe him a fool?” 

  
A frigid tension took over the room as Gaea Stared at Annabeth with satisfaction. She’d always given intellect it’s place in war, not just scheming but the actually thought out words that one could say to their enemy to win. Now, that intellect threw the first blow, catching her by surprise. “I don’t believe he is anything but himself.” Her words sounded useless even to her but she had to trust Percy not to listen to Gaea. Otherwise, she’d be right and Annabeth never liked to be wrong. 

_  
This is what I must do to defeat her._

  
How many time had stalling saved her life? She hoped that it would help one last time. Not to save her own. “He was never a pawn. Maybe you expected him to be, but Leo isn’t here and neither is Hercules. So I guess he surprised us both.”  
Strangely enough, Leo was there. Maybe only in spirit but the gadget he’d entrusted Annabeth with as they fought the giants would play as much of a rule as any of them. A plan never planned. But they were meant to fight together, they would know. 

  
She held the small square behind her back, in clear view of the demigods behind her. She had often learned that those who saw so much failed to see what was right there in front of them, she knew Gaea was the same. The goddess expected them to bicker, she was in no rush to kill them. She’d won, she didn’t need giants she was fully conscious now. 

  
With a sharp intake of breath, she threw the square. In the moments when it sailed towards her she saw everything that could go wrong. She could dodge, she could have seen it, the item could simply not work. A fraction of a second. 

Then it hit. 

  
There was a gasp that made her chest tighten and then the goddess was on her knees, struggling against the binds that had once killed Daedalus’s own enemy so many years ago. She thanked Leo, knowing she would never hear her, for his curiosity. For prying into the laptop the greatest architect had left behind before it was lost forever. 

  
Of course it didn’t kill her the way it had the King but so much of her essence was present before them that she was successfully trapped. She roared at them making wild explosions of earth surface stronger than any canon. Percy and Jason disappeared behind her and Piper yelled at Gaea meeting the power of her cries and somehow making them subside. Frank soared above, back in his Dragon form with Hazel riding on his startling copper back.   
Utter chaos engulfed them. All Annabeth did was laugh.

  
“Ready?” Jason nodded. His blonde hair was now so long it cast shadows over his blue eyes. “It was a pleasure, Grace.”

  
The boys smiled one last time. “The pleasure was all mine, Jackson.”

  
Two blades met, one gold and one bronze. Percy reached into his gut and a shudder caused by only him followed, the wind picked up around them. He urged the feeling to grow stronger and stronger until it hurt so much he wouldn’t have been able to stand upright. Lighting cackled and he felt a metallic burn in his mouth. But the taste of soil was far stronger. Above him he could faintly hear Frank and Hazel, but everything else was drowned out by destruction. It wasn’t enough.

  
He couldn’t reach any further into his gut. There was nothing left, no big explosion. He’d been told over and over again through-out his life as a demigod how dangerous and powerful he was. Was this it? Just when he needed the power and the danger. 

_  
No._

  
Then, Percy reached somewhere he’d never thought of before. A different pull that had always been easier to stroke: he reached into his heart. He saw Annabeth pulling him of the lake, his mother stroking his hair after a nightmare. He saw Grover and Annabeth and him playing hacky sack at a bus station, heard them laugh as Grover ate the apple they’d been using to play. He saw Thalia’s worried expression as they looked for Annabeth and heard Nico babble on and on about mythomagic. Everything that pulled at his heart, his brother and father and step-father, Chiron and his friends. They surfaced and explosion that Percy didn’t try to contain. 

  
There was sea spray so strong he felt it cut against his face, the electricity in the room singed the hair on his arms. He could no longer feel his feet on the ground. All he was certain of was his sword against Jason’s and the feeling like his body was tearing itself apart. Only one thing cut through the powerful sound of wind against his eardrum. Annabeth was laughing. 

  
“Seaweed Brain, you idiot.” 

  
Then the world fell to his storm.


End file.
